UNC Charlotte panel tasked with ‘difficult conversation’ of how to remember shooting

UNC Charlotte has formed a remembrance commission to “lead the difficult conversations” on how best to memorialize victims of the April 30 campus shooting and how to mark the attack, university officials said in a news release Tuesday.

Chairing the Niner Nation Remembrance Commission will be Emily Zimmern, former executive director and president of the Levine Museum of the New South in uptown Charlotte, UNCC officials said.

David Reed, uncle of Reed Parlier, one of two students killed in the classroom shooting, also will serve on the 14-member commission. Student Riley Howell also was killed, while four other students were hospitalized.

Chandler Crean, 2019-20 president of UNCC’s Student Government Association, and immediate past president Niayai Lavien also will serve on the commission.

Here is the complete list of commission members named by the university:

• Emily Zimmern, who led Levine Museum of the New South from 1995 to 2015. “Under her leadership, active engagement in Charlotte’s civic life became the museum’s hallmark,” UNCC officials said in Tuesday’s announcement.
• Kim Bradley, chief of staff to UNC Charlotte Chancellor Philip Dubois.
• Lawrence Calhoun, UNC Charlotte professor emeritus of psychological science. He was on the faculty from 1973 to 2014 and is an “internationally recognized expert on posttraumatic growth,” according to the university’s news release.
• Chandler Crean, a rising senior with double majors in business administration finance and business administration management.
• Jason Dominiczak, who has worked in UNCC’s information technology services department since 2014 and was among the first responders to the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, as captain of the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad.
• Carla Hanzal, vice president of public art for the Charlotte Arts and Science Council who also served for a decade as curator of modern and contemporary art at The Mint Museum of Charlotte.
• Katie Howell, UNCC archivist.
• Niayai Lavien, who will graduate Saturday with a major in political science and a double minor in American studies and philosophy.
• Emily Makas, UNCC associate professor of architectural and urban history and interim associate director of the School of Architecture. She is “a nationally recognized scholar of memorial architecture,” according to the UNCC release.
• Michael Marsicano, president and chief executive officer of Foundation for the Carolinas since 1999 after 10 years as president and CEO of the Arts and Science Council. He also is on the Duke University Board of Trustees.
• Tim McCleary, founder and managing director of The Involvement Practice, described by the university as “a change activation firm that specializes in culture.” He and his family moved to Charlotte in 2015 from Newtown, Conn., the site of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
• Tonderai Mushipe, a second-year doctoral student in UNCC’s Geography and Earth Science program and president of UNC Charlotte’s Graduate & Professional Student Government.
• Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, professor of software and information systems and associate dean of UNCC’s College of Computing and Informatics. He was on the Virginia Tech faculty during the 2007 shootings.
• David Reed, uncle of Reed Parlier. Reed graduated from UNCC’s Belk College of Business in 1983 and is a certified public accountant with Bank of America.

This story was originally published May 7, 2019 at 4:06 PM with the headline "UNC Charlotte panel tasked with ‘difficult conversation’ of how to remember shooting."