UNC School of Education

Professor of Social Foundations of Education

T 919.962.9378
F 919.962.1533
gunks@email.unc.edu

212D Peabody Hall
CB 3500

Professor of education Gerald Unks began his career as a social studies teacher at Evanston (Ill.) Township High School. In his 38 years on Carolina’s faculty, the self-described “social reconstructionist” has taught more than 22,000 students, making him arguably one of the best known teachers on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Affiliated with the Curriculum, Culture and Change area and director of the Honors Program, Unks is most closely identified with Education 41, “The School in American Society.” He developed this elective to inform non-education majors – including future parents and policymakers – about the value, philosophy and practice of education. Although Unks does not shy away from giving low grades, more than 300 students enroll in this course each semester. In conjunction with the course, Unks provides optional service learning opportunities to his students; several hundred of them tutor at-risk elementary students each year.

Unks has received numerous teaching awards, including UNC-Chapel Hill’s Tanner Award in 2002, UNC-Chapel Hill Favorite Faculty Awards in 2000, 1999 and 1990, the School of Education’s J. Minor Gwynn Teaching Award in 1994, an Amoco Foundation Award in 1977 and a Standard Oil Foundation Award in 1971. He was honored by his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1998 when the College of Education recognized his “outstanding contributions to the field of education.” Unks is a member of Carolina’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars and serves on its board of directors.

Realizing the enormous benefits to be derived from foreign study, in the early 70s Unks founded the UNC-Chapel Hill London Program, which he continues to direct. Now in its 32nd year of operation, this program enables 65 students from varying disciplines to explore a four-week, living-learning syllabus in London each summer. According to Unks, “The greatest service that teachers can perform for their students is to help them remove their cultural blinders, and that – simply put – is the foundation of the London Program.” He has also taken students to the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China.

• Ph.D. 1970 - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Education
• M.A. 1968 - Bradley University, History Education
• B.S. 1958 - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Social Science Education

• Policy Studies
• Social Studies
• Social and Cultural Studies
• Gay Teenagers
• Research Overview

• School in American Society

• The Tanner Award (all-University) for superior and distinguished teaching of undergraduates, 2002
• J. Minor Gwynn Teaching Award (School of Education), 1992-93
• J. Minor Gwynn Teaching Improvement Award (School of Education), 1992
• Favorite Professor Award (jointly presented by the General Alumni Association), 1990
• The Amoco Award (all-University) for superior and distinguished teaching of undergraduates, 1977
• Yackity Yack Teaching Award (student body and the Yackity Yack Editorial Board), 1973
• The Standard Oil Award (all-University) for superior and distinguished teaching of undergraduates, 1971
• Yackity Yack Teaching Award (student body and the Yackity Yack Editorial Board), 1970

• "C-Tops" presentations to parents of incoming first year students(14 occasions)
• "Carolina Contact" program to encourage high school honors students to enroll at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997)
• Advisory Board, University Teaching Fellows (1990-present)
• University Faculty Council (the highest elected governing body at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (1991-1993)
• K-12 Curriculum Committee (1992-present)
• Director, Undergraduate Honors Program in the School of Education (1992-present)
• Coordinator, ARTS/EDUCATION AGENDA

Unks, Gerald. "Will Schools Risk Teaching about the Risk of AIDS?" The Clearing House, Vol. 69, No. 4 (March-April, 1996), pp. 205-10.

Unks, Gerald. "Thinking About the Homosexual Adolescent," The High School Journal, Vol. 77, Nos. 1 and 2 (Oct.-Nov. 1993, Dec.-Jan., 1994) pp. 1-6.

Unks, Gerald. "Three Nations' Curricula: What Can We Learn From Them?" NASSP Bulletin, Vol. 76, No. 548 (December, 1992), pp. 30-46.