President Barack Obama, sporting a light blue tie, jokingly thanked the team and Coach Roy Williams “for salvaging my bracket” en route to winning its fifth national championship.

Obama recalled playing some ball with the team during a visit to Chapel Hill, N.C., more than a year ago.

“And I’m not sure whose luck rubbed off on who,” he said. “I think there was just a good vibe going on there, because they’re now national champions and I’m now president.”

Obama said Williams instills the importance of academics with his players because “they didn’t just plow through the tournament field; they also had the highest graduation rate of anybody in the Final Four.”

The team also knows about giving back to the community — such as running a Special Olympics basketball clinic and fundraising for North Carolina charities — and understands that “being a champion doesn’t stop when you step off the court.”

Williams and the team’s seniors presented Obama with a plaque and basketball jersey with “Obama” written across the back.

In a role reversal twist, Bernadette Gray-Little was asked whether she expected backlash in 2009 from Tar Heels after deciding to leave her job as UNC’s provost to be the chancellor of KU. “I sincerely hope so,” she joked.

Gray-Little, 64, was peppered with questions about athletics, graduation rates, race, endowments, gender and waving the wheat after the Kansas Board of Regents decided Friday to appoint her to replace chancellor Robert Hemenway, who is stepping down after 14 years.

Question: Why the career change?

Answer: “There was not anything about the University of North Carolina that made me want to leave. I spoke with the search firm who contacted me and with a number of people I knew who had spent time at The University of Kansas. This just seemed like a wonderful opportunity.”

Q: Does KU have a special appeal to you?

A: “There is a sense of place and a sense of tradition. I look forward to getting started.”

Q: What are your thoughts about leading a new campaign to expand KU’s endowment?

A: “There has been discussion over the past several months, if not longer, about beginning a campaign, and I think that it is certainly time to put that into action. I would look forward to a campaign as a way to raise funds for academic programs, for resources for faculty, for faculty professorships, for scholarships and other programs at the university. I believe that fundraising can be a major asset and has to be a major component of funds for a modern research university of the complexity of KU.”

Q: Where were you raised?

A: “I grew up in North Carolina, in eastern North Carolina, the town of Washington. I went to school there through high school. I left and went to college in Pennsylvania for my undergraduate degree, graduate school at St. Louis University, a Fulbright Fellowship after that and then went to the University of North Carolina.”

Q: Explain your interest in improving undergraduate student retention and graduation rates at KU.

A: “I was intrigued by what factors might contribute to students here not completing their degrees in higher numbers. One of the first things to do would be to get a better sense of why that is and what kind of programs would be needed to enhance the percentage of students who graduate in four and five years rather than leaving without ever getting a degree.”

Q: Are you aware of budget problems at state universities in Kansas?

A: “Somewhat. But I’m very familiar with that already from North Carolina. I think the situation is comparable here, so I know we’re in a situation where we have a diminishing budget. It seems to get smaller and smaller each day.”

Q: What do you think about being the first black and first woman hired as chancellor at KU?

A: “I’m going to let someone else comment on the symbolism in that. I hope that the (search) committee looked at the opportunities that it had and chose the best person that they thought they could find for this position.” Q: How does it feel to switch jobs at this juncture of your career?

A: “I’m excited about being in a new community. I’m excited about the opportunity to meet the faculty and students and staff and really to collaborate with them in bringing The University of Kansas where it wants to be.”

Q: Have you figured out how to wave the wheat?

A: “I have not. We tried to find it online so that we could practice, but I didn’t. I’ll learn soon enough.”

Q: Explain your academic interests?

“I’m a psychologist. My teaching has been in psychopathology and psychotherapy, and self-esteem, especially self-esteem development in minority children and adolescents. My other area of research has been on the role of power and conflict resolution and marital satisfaction.”

Q: Will you teach classes as your predecessor did at KU?

A: “I haven’t any specific plans to teach a class next year. I certainly do hope to have opportunities to meet with students. I understand that there is an active student government organization. I would expect to have interaction with students there and with other students on campus in many ways.”

Q: Before being appointed at 3 p.m. Friday, had you visited the KU campus in Lawrence?

A: “I was on the KU campus for about five minutes an hour ago and I didn’t get a chance to do much exploring. Before then, it’s been so many years since I’ve been on the campus that I really don’t think I have a sense of all the things about it. The little bit I saw (Friday) certainly confirmed my impression that it’s a very attractive campus, but I do not know the campus intimately.”

Hundreds of students bowed their heads, and more than a few wiped tears from their eyes as they gathered in the Pit to remember Eve Carson, the UNC student body president who was murdered one year ago.

“Today is a day to celebrate the special person that Eve was,” UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp said at the start of the remembrance ceremony. “Her enthusiasm, originality and persistence made her an unforgettable person.”

Thorp, who first met Carson when he interviewed her for the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship, shared several memories of her with the crowd.

The night before Carson was murdered, she sat behind Thorp at a men’s basketball game as the Tar Heels beat Florida State on UNC’s senior night.

“On the way out I gave her a high five, and she grabbed my hand and shook it, because for Eve… a simple high five just wasn’t enough,” he said. “It needed more love. There was always more love with Eve, especially love for Carolina.”

Thorp and Winston Crisp, UNC assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, called on students to honor Carson’s legacy by performing community service and embodying the ideals of the Carolina way-striving towards excellence while maintaining compassion for others.

Students described the many ways that Carson inspired them to help others in an audio recording played at the event. Among the projects were a tree-planting and a scholarship in Carson’s honor.

Following the event, UNC sophomore Katherine Novinski described in an interview with The Chronicle how Carson inspired her personally, and how Carson affected the UNC community.

“She was the person I looked up to more than anybody,” said Novinski, a member of UNC student government’s Service North Carolina committee and one of the event’s planners. “She just had this unbelievable ability to connect with people on a different level. When she was talking to you, you felt like she was your best friend, even if you had only met her once.”

Hogan Medlin, also a member of the Service NC committee, said Carson’s influence on UNC went far beyond her role as student body president.

“Eve was all about random acts of kindness, like telling someone how great they are, or understanding someone’s strengths and lifting them up to their full potential,” he said in an interview.

Medlin, who is a member of the UNC a capella group The Clef Hangers, took the stage during the ceremony with the rest of the group to sing James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind,” which was one of Carson’s favorite songs.

“I know my legs were sort of trembling because I was worried that I was going to mess up because I wanted to do so well for Eve,” he said.

As the final strains of the song died down and the Clef Hangers filed off the stage, Thorp asked for a moment of silence, which was followed by a rendition of the UNC alma mater by the bells of the UNC Bell Tower.

“I was inspired by the turnout and the spirit that you have here,” Thorp said in an interview after the event. “I think that everybody is committing themselves to continuing her passion for service, and that’s why everybody is here.”

Carson was shot and killed in the early morning hours of March 5, 2008 after being abducted and robbed. Demario Atwater and Laurence Lovette are both charged with her murder. Lovette also allegedly murdered Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato in January 2008.

In Carson’s memory, the Service NC committee is asking students to volunteer throughout the month of March, Medlin said. The committee usually encourages student volunteering during a single week of the month.

“[We wanted] to give students a way to channel their emotions to do something productive that Eve would be proud of and Eve would want us to do,” Medlin said. “She would want us to do service, she would want us to help others.”

UNCW recently opened its first store dedicated to selling only environmentally friendly products and alternative transportation last October.

School officials say that the store, ECOteal, has been both a success and a learning experience for the students involved in its creation and in the day-to-day operations of the business.

“One hundred percent of the items in the store are sustainable, recyclable or biodegradable,” Rita Gordon, UNC Wilmington director of auxiliary services, said in a statement.

ECOteal is primarily student-run and students select the merchandise. The store provides students, faculty and staff at the university with sustainable alternatives to common items. ECOteal sells items such as organic cotton shirts, water -powered clocks, reusable totes, bicycles and skateboards.

In addition to the sustainability store, the school is reducing its carbon footprint by using an electric truck.

UNCW purchases its first electric truck, dubbed the “ECOtealmobile.” Only five of the state’s universities own electric trucks. UNCW uses its truck to deliver products to the sustainability store and also to stock special vending machines across the campus with healthy food alternatives.