Graduate Gives UNCG $1 Million For New Professorship

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has received a $1 million gift.

UNCG announced Monday that Joanne Safrit has given her alma mater the money to establish a professorship in kinesiology, the study of human movement.

Safrit is a Salisbury native and a retired professor. She graduated from the school in 1957.

The Safrit-Ennis Distinguished Professorship is named for Safrit and her longtime partner, Catherine Ennis, who died in April. Ennis received her master's degree from UNCG and taught kinesiology at several universities before joining the faculty in Greensboro in 2008.

The first recipient of this new professorship is Laurie Wideman, a kinesiology professor at UNCG since 2000.