Carolina Law alumna Sarah Elizabeth Parker ’69 will be among five UNC graduates honored at the annual University Day ceremony Monday, Oct. 12. University Day is an occasion to remember the University’s past and celebrate its future. The date, October 12, marks the laying of the cornerstone of Old East, the institution’s first building and the oldest state university building in the nation. The Carolina community first celebrated University Day in 1877, after Governor Zebulon B. Vance, as chair of the Board of Trustees, ordered that the day “be observed with appropriate ceremonies under the direction of the faculty.”
The Honorable Sarah Parker served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina for 13 years and as chief justice from 2006 until mandatory retirement in 2014. After earning her B.A. in education, Parker served in the Peace Corps in Turkey before returning to Carolina to attend law school. Upon completing her J.D. degree, she began private practice with a firm where she was the first female attorney in the firm’s 100-year history. Governor James B. Hunt Jr. appointed her to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1984 and she won election to the Supreme Court in 1992.
Parker’s honors and awards include the Distinguished Woman of North Carolina Award (1997); North Carolina Association of Black County Officials Humanitarian Award (2003); Distinguished Alumni Award (2003) and Lifetime Achievement Award (2015), University of North Carolina Law School; Meredith College Woman of Achievement (2015); North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Public Service Award (2015); three honorary degrees; and Fellow, American Bar Foundation.
Read more about University Day.
-October 2, 2015