We hope that everyone is enjoying the new semester. Hopefully you’re getting back into the swing of things without too much trouble. If everything is going well, congratulations! It turns out that you are much luckier than some of your predecessors in the winter of 1929 were.
From 14 December 1929, the Daily Tar Heel, Vol. 38, Number 71, in the North Carolina Collection.
In fact, from the very beginning of the school year, various fraternities on UNC’s campus had some pretty rotten luck. First, there were growing financial concerns and then the great stock market crash of 1929. Male students were in the position of not being able to afford being in a fraternity unless they took out a loan. Despite all of this, though, fraternities accepted a healthy number of bids that fall semester, and luck seemed to be on their side.
From the 11 January 1930, the Daily Tar Heel, Vol. 38, Number 77, in the North Carolina Collection.
Their luck ran out, however, at the end of the fall semester. On Thursday, December 12, 1929 (a day before Friday the 13th), the Delta Sigma Phi house of Old Fraternity Row was almost completely destroyed in a fire early that morning. When the members of the house woke up and realized the house was on fire, they attempted to call the fire department but could not be connected because the fire chief was already having a conversation of his own. Consequently, several members had to drive down to the station to alert the chief in person. At the time, the chief said that he heard a car beeping its horn like mad and immediately thought it was a rum runner being chased by the authorities. By the time the fire was extinguished, most clothes and furniture could be saved, and it was lucky that the nine men sleeping in the house had escaped with their lives.
From 8 January 1930, the Daily Tar Heel, Vol. 38, Number 74, in the North Carolina Collection.
Delta Sigma Phi did not hold the distinction of being the only fraternity house that burned down that year though. The Daily Tar Heel was beginning to make daily quips about old fraternity row as the “hot section of town.” The Chi Psi fraternity house also burned down that winter, on Christmas night. Unfortunately for the members of Chi Psi, they were accused (rather indirectly and hastily) of setting the fire deliberately to collect the insurance money. The controversy raged until January 8, 1930 when the students were finally freed from blame of the fire. In fact, Dr. Coker took great umbrage at the suggestion that any student at Carolina would be so devious and squared off with the insurance commissioner until the whole matter was cleared.
So, count yourself lucky. If you are rushing a fraternity or sorority this semester, we are certainly glad that lady luck seems to have reinstituted herself on our campus!
We currently find ourselves in the middle of campaign season. For the next two (or possibly three) weeks, the Pit will be abuzz with excited, albeit cold, campaign workers, the pages of the Daily Tar Heel will be filled with news of the latest endorsements, and evenings will be dominated by candidate forums. Some wonder if all the “fuss” involved in Student Body President Elections is worth it. That question is a matter of opinion. However, it is possible to objectively examine how the Office of the Student Body President became important enough to warrant the attention afforded to those who campaign for it.
Although student self-governance is a long held tradition at Carolina, the Office of the Student Body President was not created until 1921. Prior to that, the Senior Class President was head of the Student Council. The switch from Senior Class President to Student Body President was not without controversy. Early in 1921, students voted in favor of a referendum that would create the Office of Student Body President. However, when nominations for that office were due in May, those who were opposed to the switch broke up the nomination proceedings with allegations that students had been misled by the wording of the referendum. A week later the Student Council decided to again put the measure to a referendum, this time with a different wording. Once again, the referendum passed and later that month Garland Burns Porter was elected UNC’s first Student Body President.
“Student Government Records, 1919-2011” Box 26, University Archives.
In 1946, Student Government drew up its first constitution. The constitution gave the Student Body President the power to veto bills from Student Congress, an ex-officio seat on all boards and committees, including the Board of Trustees, and the authority to issue executive orders. The 1946 constitution required that the Speaker of Student Congress also serve as Vice President and that the Secretary-Treasurer (which was later split into two roles) be elected by the Student Body. Changes to the constitution in 1971 gave the Student Body President the power to appoint his Secretary and Treasurer, pending approval of congress. In 1995, the Student Body President was allowed to do the same with his/her VicePresident.
Past Student Body Presidents also played a role in increasing the power of their office. Paul Dickson III, Student Body President from 1965-1966, expanded the role of “representing the students of the University” when he became the face of the University in the very public conflict over the Speaker Ban Law. Eve Carson’s work as Student Body President from 2007-2008 inspired students both within student government and outside of it to seek change on campus. In between, various Student Body Presidents created cabinet positions for emerging campus issues, giving the Executive Branch greater influence on campus policy.
Perhaps it is the relative stability of the Office of the Student Body President that has most enabled it to flourish. Since 1946, little has changed in the Executive Branch. Conversely, the Legislative Branch has changed names, composition, and, to a certain extent, purpose numerous times.
In light of a recent addition to the Records of the Student Union (Collection #40128), we in University Archives are wondering: How many of you use the Carolina Union every day? Our next question would be: How much do you know about how it came into existence?
The Graham Memorial Student Union Building, 1959.
To start off, you might not know that Graham Memorial used to serve our campus as the Student Union. From the time it was constructed in 1932, it was packed with students to the extent that it resembled a sardine can with pillars. While Graham Memorial was a popular center for many different events (including the early years of Jubilee), it was largely inconvenient to students who lived across campus from the elegant building. And if you thought budgetary concern was a recent phenomenon, then you thought wrong. The student director of Graham Memorial consistently sought increased funds to keep the campus entertained. It seemed as if Graham Memorial just could not keep up with student demand for events and activities.
Student Union Board of Directors, Undated.
Fortunately, a good deal of this changed with the implementation of a professional staff to run the new Carolina Union in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union. The structure of a professional staff was implemented in 1958 with the first professional director of the Student Union: Howard Henry. The building opened in 1969 and enhanced its management of student activities with a newly refined organization: the Carolina Union Activities Board. Granted, there were several precursors to the CUAB we know and love today. They included the Student Entertainment Committee, the Graham Memorial Activities Board, and the Student Union Activities Board. Because the Union had no official name before 1971 (when it was officially named the “Carolina Union”), these organizations were interchangeable in name and the activities they produced. None of the three organizations can be limited to a specific date range.
Informational Flier for the Graham Memorial Student Union.
CUAB is an organization by the students of Carolina, for the students of Carolina. This mentality is evident in the Addition of September 2012 to the Student Union Records (Collection #40128).
The UNC University Archives is pleased to announce the donation of a precious artifact from the Xi Chapter of St. Anthony Hall (Delta Psi) and the St. Anthony Association of North Carolina, their associated alumni organization. This artifact is an autograph book that includes the signatures of members of Delta Psi and other UNC fraternities from the 1860s, many of whom served in the Confederate Army and several of whom were killed during the war.
The Xi Chapter of Delta Psi was founded on November 20, 1854, making it the second oldest fraternity still in existence at UNC. The chapter was dormant for some years during the University’s post-Civil War ban on all fraternities and secret organizations. In 1926 Grahame Wood (U. Penn 1895) organized efforts to revive the Xi chapter at UNC. Xi has thrived since that time.
William C. Prout, brother in St. Anthony Hall, graduate of UNC’s class of 1865 and the original owner of the autograph album, presented the signature book to the re-founded Xi chapter in 1927. It has since been kept in the Xi Chapter’s extensive archives and was professionally restored in recent years under a grant from the St. Anthony Educational Foundation. St. Anthony Hall and the St. Anthony Association of North Carolina moved to gift this item to the University Libraries due to its uniquely personal and historically valuable nature as well as its appeal to the University community as a whole.
Letter from William C. Prout donating the autograph album to the re-founded chapter in 1927Members of St. Anthony Hall at UNC in 1927 (from the Yackety-Yack)
The autograph album includes the signatures of students who attended UNC from 1862-1865, as well as other biographical data: the names of their girlfriends, their major area of study, their profession, the titles of courses taken, and their hometowns. Brothers Prout and Wood later added death dates and annotated some of the entries to identify those who had been killed in the Civil War or had died.
Page spread from the autograph album
In addition to signatures of St. Anthony Hall members, the book was passed around to other fraternities at UNC for their signatures. Among the names from these other fraternities are Wesley Lewis Battle, who was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg and was the brother of UNC President Kemp Plummer Battle; Julian Shakespeare Carr, tobacco manufacturer and namesake of Carrboro; Fredrick A. Fetter, a tutor at UNC and son of the longtime UNC professor, Manuel Fetter; and M. A. Curtis, Jr., son of the Episcopal priest and noted mycologist whose family’s notes, diaries, correspondence and other papers are housed in the Southern Historical Collection.
Autograph of Wesley Lewis BattleAutograph of Julian S. Carr
This autograph album is a significant acquisition for the University Archives and does much to help its efforts to document student life at UNC. St. Anthony Hall intends to donate additional historical materials that document its history and the various activities in which its members have participated since the chapter was reorganized in 1927 after having closed in the aftermath of the Civil War.
St. Anthony Hall is a literary, artistic and social fraternity comprising a diverse group of writers, artists and performers. Brothers and sisters of St. Anthony Hall are highly active in student life, working at times as editors and staff of the Daily Tar Heel, Phoenix magazine, Cellar Door, LAMBDA magazine, Shakespeare’s Sister, The Sixty-Niner and Yackety Yack; as elected and appointed members of all branches of Student Government; as competitors in intramural and Carolina Athletics sports programs; as performers in a variety of choral and musical groups; and in productions by PlayMakers and The LAB! Theatre.
Sisters and brothers of St. Anthony Hall have also been a part of many literary and artistic organizations in the larger community, including Paperhand Puppet Intervention, The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, The Performance Collective, Internationalist Books, The Somnambulist Project, The People’s Channel and many others. St. Anthony Hall hosts a Xi Chapter alumni reunion weekend called Swingout every spring.
Rush and pledge periods are held every semester on a schedule independent from most other fraternity rush periods. Fall ‘12 rush is going on at this time. For information on rush activities contact rushsta@gmail.com.
Notable members of the Xi chapter include journalist Charles Kuralt ‘55, soccer coach Anson Dorrance ‘74, book critic Jonathan Yardley ‘61, sportswriter Peter Gammons ‘67, editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly ’69, and basketball player Charlie Scott ’68, the first African-American to join a fraternity and receive an athletic scholarship at UNC.
Known for its support of progressive causes, St. Anthony Hall was one of only two fraternities to sign a pledge in 1963 not to patronize businesses and restaurants in Chapel Hill unless they desegregated. Its members were active in the fight to end the Speaker Ban and in the spring of 1971, the chapter became the first UNC fraternity to go co-ed.
St. Anthony Hall in the 1969 Yackety Yack
St. Anthony Hall has eleven chapters around the country, the first of which was founded at Columbia in 1847. In addition to UNC and Columbia, the other schools with chapters are University of Pennsylvania, Trinity College, University of Rochester, Princeton University, Brown University, University of Mississippi, Yale University, University of Virginia, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
University of North Carolina Association of Student Governments Records, Recently Processed!
There has been a lot of talk of late about the system-wide tuition increases at the University of North Carolina. The plan to increase tuition by 15.6 percent over four years at UNC-Chapel Hill and by an average of 8.8 percent at other UNC schools is seen by some as crucial to maintaining the academic standing of the university, and that plan passed in November. The University of North Carolina Association of Student Governments (UNCASG), a system-wide advocacy organization, has been on the front lines of this debate.
Chimera Con program covers (composite), in the Chimera Fantasy and Science Fiction Club of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40310-z, University Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A major initiative started last fall by the University Archives and Records Management Services, in partnership with Wilson Library’s Technical Services department, is to make accessible some of the records hidden away in our unprocessed backlog. While still an ongoing effort, the first fruits of that labor have now seen the light of day, and can be paged in the 4th Floor Reading Room of Wilson Special Collections Library. Full details after the jump.
As part of the digitization of the Joseph Lawrence Dusenbery’s journal for “Verses and Fragments: The James L. Dusenbery Journal (1841-1842)“, a few selected documents from the records of the Dialectic Society held in the University Archives have also been digitized.
These documents include an address to the Dialectic Society by his brother, Edwin Lafayette Dusenbery, in 1845, and the Dialectic Society Library Circulation Records of Joseph, and two other brothers, Henry Mcrorie and William Brevard.
Dusenbery’s journal is the “heart” of this online resource. Kept by him during his senior year, the journal is an amazing resource for those interested in student life at UNC in 1841 and 1842.
To celebrate the rich history of their organizations, each year the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies delve into the University Archives to find a topic that was debated 200 years ago. The topic may be something still very applicable to today, or it may be debated in an “old-style” fashion, as if reliving history.
Dialectic Society Pin (from the collections of the North Carolina Collection Gallery)
On Monday, November 21 at 7:30pm, in the Dialectic Society chambers of New West, the Di-Phi will hold its annual bicentennial debate. The topic is a debate from March 3, 1824, “Is an alliance between Great Britain and the United State to be desired by the latter.”
Dialectic Society Chambers, 1935
The University Archives holds the records of both the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies from their founding in 1795, including minute books, addresses, debates, and photographs.
For more information about these Societies and their records, please see the following finding aids:
Our friends at the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (http://digitalnc.org/) have just completed digitizing Black Ink, the official publication of UNC’s Black Student Movement. Publication of Black Ink began in 1969, with the goal of transforming “Blackness … into pictures and words.” 212 issues from 1969 through 2001 are now available online.
Also, if you are in Chapel Hill this weekend celebrating Black Alumni Reunion, be sure to stop by Wilson Library’s lobby to see an exhibit on the history of the Black Student Movement with materials pulled from the North Carolina Collection and the University Archives. Wilson Library’s weekend hours can be found here.
As a graduate student, I feel a bit removed from student organizations, but yesterday I talked with some students with a banner and a loud boombox right outside of Wilson Library entreating the University to “Occupy UNC.”
