Hugh Morton, Tar Heel Camera Man

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to visit the exhibit Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective at The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University, then Saturday, October 5th at 2:00 p.m would be a … Continue reading

Wheat, Ashford

Wheat, Ashford, 1949

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to visit the exhibit Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective at The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University, then Saturday, October 5th at 2:00 p.m would be a date worth considering!

As promised in the previous post announcing the exhibit, we have more information on the panel discussion featuring Woody Durham, Betty Ray McCain, and Jack Hilliard.  The event is titled “Hugh Morton, Tar Heel Camera Man,” and you can see a full description of the event by visiting the link to the UNC University Library’s announcement webpage.

I’ll be leading a gallery tour after the panel discussion.  If you plan to attend, please RSVP via email using the link on the announcement page.  And when you get to the Turchin, please say hello and let me know that you are a reader of A View to Hugh!

The New Indentured Class

In 1982, UNC System President Bill Friday wrote suggestions to give before the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education.  His suggestions were a response to President Reagan’s proposals to cut student financial aid. One of President Friday’s counterpoints to the proposed … Continue reading

President Bill Friday, 28 July 1977, From the NCC Photographic Archives. Black and White 120 Roll Film, 37875.

President Bill Friday, 28 July 1977, From the NCC Photographic Archives. Black and White 120 Roll Film, 37875.

In 1982, UNC System President Bill Friday wrote suggestions to give before the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education.  His suggestions were a response to President Reagan’s proposals to cut student financial aid. One of President Friday’s counterpoints to the proposed budget cuts follows.

“Transferring an increasing level of the cost of education from society to the current user of education services will create a new indentured class of individuals who may have borrowed more heavily for their education than their future earning power can accommodate.” 

President Friday's defense of his address to the subcommittee. From folder 1846, Box 50 of the Records of the Office of the President: William Friday, Collection 40009.

President Friday’s defense of his address to the subcommittee. From folder 1846, Box 50 of the Records of the Office of the President: William Friday, Collection 40009.

 

For many students, President Friday’s prediction of an indentured servitude may be becoming a reality. The Condition of Education 2013 was recently released by the Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics.  According to this report: “In 2010–11, the average student loan amount, in constant 2011–12 dollars, was $6,800, which was a 39 percent increase from 2000–01, when the average student loan amount was $4,900. Of the 4.1 million students who entered the repayment phase on their student loans in fiscal year (FY) 2010, some 375,000, or 9 percent, had defaulted before FY 2011.”  See the full report here.

What are your thoughts on student loans, student debt, and financial aid?

An exhibit on President Friday, “Bill Friday: In His Own Words,” will go on display in the Wilson Library on October 8th. The exhibit celebrates President Friday’s life of impact on the University, the State, and the Nation. You can also view an online exhibit The Legacy of William C. Friday in The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History.

Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective

You may have noticed that it has been very quiet here at A View to Hugh the past couple months.  Well, that’s because there has been way too much happening behind the scenes!  I’ve been deeply immersed in curating the … Continue reading

1950s portrait of photographer Hugh Morton with Graflex camera.

1950s portrait of photographer Hugh Morton with Graflex camera.

You may have noticed that it has been very quiet here at A View to Hugh the past couple months.  Well, that’s because there has been way too much happening behind the scenes!  I’ve been deeply immersed in curating the exhibit Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective, and today is its official debut at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.  For those readers who hail from other states, the exhibit is ten miles or so as the raven flies from Grandfather Mountain.  (By car you’ll need to drive about twice as far.)

The exhibit consists of eighty-six photographs, many of which have never been published or were published decades ago, made from high-resolution scans of Morton’s original negatives and printed on a fine art inkjet paper.  Even if you have seen Morton’s photographs in books, magazines, and online, you probably have never seen his photographs like this before.  Here’s a teaser: the exhibit includes a seven-foot-long seamless panorama printed from six negatives made from an outcrop on the west side of Mount Jefferson in 1954!

The Morton exhibit opening is part of the Turchin Center’s larger Fall Celebration, which includes four other exhibits.  Their celebration is, in turn, part of an even larger event, downtown Boone’s “First Friday Art Crawl.”  Attendance at the Turchin this evening could surpass 1,000 people during the four-hour open house.

We at UNC-Chapel Hill will be hosting a special event at the Turchin Center on Saturday, October 5th—a conversation about Hugh Morton and his photography with his friends Woody Durham (“The Voice of the Tar Heels”), Betty McCain, and regular contributor to A View to Hugh Jack Hilliard.  I’ll be offering a gallery talk after the panel discussion, and there will be light afternoon refreshments.  More details will be announced in the near future.

This retrospective has been two years in the making, and it has been an exhausting but extremely rewarding experience.  The exhibit will be on display through January 25th, and during the coming months I’ll be featuring images in the exhibit with more thorough background and description than an exhibit label will permit.  I’ll also talk about the research and design processes, and more.  So please check back often!

But for now, I’m headed to Boone to take it all in!

UNC Adds 18th Institution to System: Geometrodynamics University?

Many of the legal issues faced by the UNC General Administration are no laughing matter, but sometimes they do make for some interesting, even humorous, correspondence. North Carolina law mandates that UNC system institutions receive a license from UNC’s Board … Continue reading

Many of the legal issues faced by the UNC General Administration are no laughing matter, but sometimes they do make for some interesting, even humorous, correspondence.

North Carolina law mandates that UNC system institutions receive a license from UNC’s Board of Governors to confer degrees. Because of this, General Administration has found itself playing watchdog when institutions have 1) claimed to be constituents of the university system, or 2) have come under suspicion of being a degree mill.

In this 1984 letter, the former associate vice president of  student services and special programs at UNC General Administration takes a rather serious tone against the founder of “Geometrodynamics University” for awarding himself a doctorate degree in quantum mechanics:

From the unprocessed backlog of General Administration's Legal Affairs Division, #40015, University Archives.

From the unprocessed backlog of General Administration’s Legal Affairs Division, #40015, University Archives.

This is just a relatively lighthearted example of an issue that UNC General Administration has to deal with;  many more examples of similar, and more serious interactions can be found in the archives.