The Alumni Association will host an elegant evening for a good cause at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 4. The Green Tie Gala will benefit the need-based scholarships named in honor of Gregory Davis (’76). The event takes place at Reel Works Studios at the N.C. Music Factory. Tickets are $75 per person.
The event will feature live music, dancing, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, dessert and a mystery box fundraiser. Prospective attendees can register online.
Davis was a 21-year-old high school freshman who had been labeled mentally retarded when he dropped out of school in 1972. He got his GED from Central Piedmont Community College. Four years later, he became one of the first African Americans to graduate from UNC Charlotte’s Religious Studies Department.
Later, Davis earned a Master of Divinity from Duke and a Ph.D. in American religious history from the Union Institute.
“I was always taught that education was the best way out,” Davis said. “I’m just blessed.”
That is a blessing he wanted to facilitate for similar students. Davis went on to oversee minority retention programs at the University with a focus on mentoring first-generation college students.
“When I was first there, there were only about 100 minority students,” he recalled. “Now, they represent 20 to 25 percent of the student population. That’s great.”
When Davis retired as director of multicultural affairs in 2008, his decades-long commitment to the University was rewarded with a need-based scholarship in his honor. Four years post-retirement, Davis misses his interaction with the students. However, pastoring the 180-member Bellafonte Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg keeps him busy.