He looked sharp standing before the crowded room of Gerrard Hall with a fresh haircut for the Third Annual Carolina Chiron Award “Last Lecture.”
Ralph Byrns, a UNC-Chapel Hill economics professor and 2011 winner of the Carolina Chiron Award for Excellence in Teaching, spoke Wednesday about working hard in life and knowing who to include in it during his speech titled “Mysteries and Puzzles, Form and Substance.”
Though he was ready for his speech Tuesday, he jokingly complained about having to get a haircut earlier that morning. His wife made him.
“I still don’t understand my wife,” he said.
As a transition into his speech, Byrns further explained why he doesn’t understand his wife. “I don’t understand why girls want dead vegetation,” he said.
In an anecdote, Byrns said that he never saw the need for buying his wife flowers because they die quickly. Likewise, he said he doesn’t understand why he couldn’t have just bought her a gargantuan cubic zirconium instead of a diamond or “sparkly rock.”
Based on one of his former theories, he said “I thought substance had to be about functionality.” But neither Byrns’ wife nor children would accept his theory, which has caused him to change it.
He said that when he gave his wife her first wedding ring, worth $5,000, on their 20th anniversary, she cried. And when he bought his daughters a replicated-version of the Cabbage Patch Kids, they cried. So he went and brought them real ones.
“I felt, once again, defeated by women,” Byrns said.
From these experiences, he has learned how form and substance are about quality, not what they can do. He went on to say that form becomes an image that people embed in their mind.
Byrns altered the topic of his speech from family and focused on students. He said that UNC students worry much more than students at the eight other schools he has taught at. However, he told them not to cut corners.
“Stealing and lying and cheating is just not worth it,” he said.
“I can recall four times in my life when I cheated,” Byrns said, “and I’m 68 years old. It still burns me.”
Though he knows UNC is a hard university, he said the wrong students are worrying too much and he believes the determination of students can lead to cheating. He said students should work harder toward making the world a better place, not just succeeding in academics.
“Having friends matters,” he said. “Have people that you love matters.”
After receiving his reward and bouquet, he smiled and said, “I really love this place. I’ve never loved any place more or any students more than those that I love at this place.”
In awe of the moment, he continued, “I promise you that my wife is going to love this [his bouquet].”
By Ebony Shamberger, Black Ink Copy Editor
