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Generosity Personified
Educators give. It's the nature of the beast – the vocation that serves, providing a foundation for social civility, upward mobility and participation in democracy. Using every gift in the intellectual, empathic, physical, soul-searching and problem-solving arena to uplift and enlighten, educators give. Dr. Nancy Vacc began as an elementary school teacher and became a UNCG educator whose legacy of giving extends from one lifetime into the next.
Just when it seems this retired Professor of Curriculum and Instruction has surpassed the generosity boundary, she gives again. Beyond her gifts of classroom teaching from elementary to college, shared knowledge in conference presentations, published academic works and research, Nancy is infinitely generous. Through testamentary gifts and donations, she assists future students with access to the beloved university that meant so much to Nancy and her husband.
The 2002 passing of Nancy's husband, Dr. Nicholas Vacc, led her to memorialize his work in counseling at UNCG. She donated funds in 2004 to build the Vacc Bell Tower at Anniversary Plaza, now gracing campus on the corner of College Avenue and Spring Garden Street and honoring her husband's 23-year tenure at UNCG. Dr. Nicholas Vacc served a decade as an award-winning chair of the Department of Counseling and Educational Development, and as the Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor from 1997 through 2002.
A lovely landscaped spot for reading and reflection, the Vacc Bell Tower is a visual gift to every person who encounters it. Its inaugural lighting elicited Nancy's reaction:
"It gives me great pleasure to give a little back to UNCG for all the cherished experiences Nicholas and I enjoyed as faculty members and previously by me as a graduate student."
Determined to support future educators, Nancy established the Nicholas A. Vacc Doctoral Fellowship in Counselor Education and the Nancy Nesbitt Vacc Doctoral Fellowship in Elementary Education in 2005.
Nancy established the Dr. Nicholas D. Vacc and Dr. Nancy N. Vacc Distinguished Professorship in 2008, perpetually contributing to faculty excellence at UNCG; Michael Parker in UNCG's Creative Writing Department became the first to receive this award in 2014.
In 2009, Nancy created an endowment fund to support the Nicholas A. Vacc Counseling and Consulting Clinic, and in August 2016, she established the Vacc Women's Golf Scholarship Endowment, the largest planned gift received by UNCG athletics up to that date. This game-changer provides an annual full out-of-state scholarship for women's golf.
Dr. Nancy Vacc's philanthropic contributions illustrate her love for UNCG and her wish to facilitate accessibility for future students. For educator Nancy Vacc, giving is a way of life.
