New Addition Explores Changing the Undergraduate Curriculum at UNC in the 1980s

dth14april1980
Daily Tar Heel, 14 April 1980, via Newspapers.com

A new addition to the University Archives documents work and discussions around a major revision of undergraduate course requirements at UNC in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The “Committee to Review the Undergraduate Curriculum” was formed in 1978 and was chaired by English professor Weldon Thornton. The “Thornton Committee,” as it was often called, proposed expanding general education requirements for all undergraduates. The committee’s recommendations were the subject of debate (and sometimes protest) on campus as students and faculty discussed the role of the university in determining the path of each student’s education.

After many meetings and a full revision of the report, the committee’s recommendations were approved by the faculty council in 1981. These records provide an in-depth look at the complicated and contentious process to reform the curriculum at UNC.

Exam Spoilers…for Fall 1885

Could you pass finals in 1885?

While looking through the University Papers this week, I found these exams administered at the end of the fall semester in 1885. There is one for Chemistry, Astronomy, Physics and English. Some of the questions would be familiar to a student today, but others, not so much. Can you tell us “what are the defects of our Alphabet?”

Exams administered December 1885 (from the University Papers, #40005, University Archives).

Update: The Curious Case of the Cuban Club

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Cuban Club, a short-lived club for Cuban students at UNC in the early 20th century. This week, I came across a letter written just months after the Spanish-American War in which Major General Joseph Wheeler, president of the Cuban Educational Association, tells UNC President Edwin Alderman that he “note[s] with pleasure that you state that the University of North Carolina would easily give scholarships, remitting all tuition to several [Cuban students].”

The Cuban Educational Association operated from 1898 to 1901 and partnered with colleges across the United States to send Cuban and Puerto Rican college-age students to school in the United States. Universities and colleges offered one to two students a full scholarship to cover books, tuition and fees. The students and their families had to cover the cost of living, usually $200 – $300 annually. Therefore, most of the students coming to the United States were from the middle and upper classes. The scholarship mandated that the students return home after graduation.

Over the four years it was in operation, the Cuban Educational Association and its over 50 partner institutions helped to send over 2,500 students to school in the United States. When these students returned home, most became teachers, doctors and lawyers in their communities.

This letter was written 10 years before the Cuban Club appeared in the Yackety Yack, but it suggests that the influx of students from Cuba in the early 20th century may have been related to work begun by the Cuban Educational Association.

Letter to Dr. Alderman from Joshua (from the University Papers, #40005, University Archives).

Original Post: The Curious Case of the Cuban Club

New in the Archives: Research and Biography on Edwin Greenlaw

Edwin Greenlaw, ca. 1920s. From the Portrait Collection (P2), NCC Photo Archives.
Edwin Greenlaw, ca. 1920s. From the Portrait Collection (P2), NCC Photo Archives.

A new collection containing correspondence, research, and writings about legendary UNC English professor Edwin Greenlaw is now available in the University Archives.

Greenlaw came to UNC in 1913 during a period of significant expansion and intellectual growth.  Although only here for a dozen years (Greenlaw accepted a job at Johns Hopkins in 1925), he led the English department through a period of rapid change, tripling the number of faculty members, starting a department of Comparative Literature, and helping to found the UNC Press. His legacy on campus is reflected in Greenlaw Hall, still home to the Department of English and Comparative Literature.

Thomas Wolfe, UNC alumnus and author of Look Homeward, Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again, took classes with Greenlaw and credited him as being a major influence on his development as a writer. A fictionalized version of Greenlaw appears in Wolfe’s novel The Web and the Rock.

The collection was compiled by Edwin Greenlaw’s brother Lowell Greenlaw. Lowell Greenlaw woked for years on a biography of his brother, drafts of which are included in the collection. The collection also includes extensive correspondence between Lowell Greenlaw and many of the people who knew and worked with his brother. These materials were carefully preserved by Carter Greenlaw Baker, Ailsie Baker McEnteggart, and Georgia Lowell Baker, the grandchildren of Lowell M. Greenlaw.  Shirley Greenlaw Baker, daughter of Lowell M. Greenlaw, had been the keeper and organizer of the collection until it was donated by her children to UNC-Chapel Hill.

The Lowell Greenlaw Papers on Edwin Greenlaw are a terrific resource for anyone who wants to learn more about this important and influential scholar and teacher and his role in building and shaping the English Department at UNC.

 

Why We Don’t Collect Syllabi (And Tips on How to Find them Anyway)

The UNC University Archives does not collect syllabi or reading lists from each course taught at UNC-Chapel Hill. Because this question comes up pretty often, I wanted to share more information about our process for determining what to collect and talk about cases where we make exceptions.

Records Schedule
In deciding which official UNC records to collect, we are guided by the General Records Retention and Disposition Schedule, which describes in detail the types of records created by the university and outlines rules stating which should be kept, and for how long. The records schedule was developed with the State Archives of North Carolina, which oversees official records statewide. Here’s what the schedule says about syllabi, in the section on curriculum and instruction records:

2.11 Syllabi and Outlines Records
Records (including reference copies) documenting each course taught by the unit. This series may include but is not limited to: draft and final copies of course syllabi and outlines, and related documentation and correspondence.

Disposition Instructions: Destroy in office when reference value ends.

This means, simply, that syllabi should be kept only for as long as they’re useful in the office. That’s clear enough, but it does pose a dilemma: part of our job is documenting the history of the university, and detailed information about what is taught in specific classes is important to understanding the evolving curriculum at UNC.

Finding Historic Syllabi from UNC
Syllabi, and materials related to the development of the academic curriculum at UNC, do show up in University Archives in administrative and departmental records, and also in faculty papers in the Archives and the Southern Historical Collection. A finding aid search reveals many collections with syllabi from UNC faculty and even more containing files on course offerings and curricula. Syllabi may also appear on websites that are collected as part of the UNC University Archives Web Archives.

Many UNC academic departments offer sample syllabi online, including some from previous years (we found examples from History, Biology, and Social Work).

Changes at UNC-Chapel Hill
In 2012, the UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Council approved a resolution requiring standard elements in each syllabus and requiring that these be maintained for at least four years. This decision was driven by a desire for increased accountability and transparency regarding courses offered at the university. There are not currently any plans to retain these syllabi beyond the four year period mentioned in the resolution, unless a department decides that the syllabi would still be useful to keep on file.

Nationwide Efforts to Collect Syllabi
There have been several projects aimed at collecting and analyzing information from college course reading lists nationwide. The largest current effort that I’m aware of is the Open Syllabus Project from Columbia University. Rather than presenting the content of individual syllabi, the website’s “Syllabus Explorer” aggregates assigned readings from submitted syllabi and enables users to view trends in texts used for college classes. The book appearing most frequently in the submitted syllabi is The Elements of Style, followed by Plato’s Republic and The Communist Manifesto.

The Open Syllabus project appears to have received many syllabi from UNC-Chapel Hill instructors. Elements of Style tops the list of most frequently assigned readings for UNC classes represented in the database, followed by SILS Dean Gary Marchionini’s book Information Seeking in Electronic Environments. This suggests that the library science courses are over-represented in the syllabi submitted from UNC. Either that or Marchionini’s work has crossed over into classic literature and is now being studied in English classes. We’d need more data to say for sure.

Syllabi and Intellectual Property
For this blog post, I’ve just focused on collection and preservation. There is a larger and more complicated debate around the issue of syllabi as intellectual property. This has played out most recently in Missouri where a legislative demand for transparency is countered with a desire among some faculty to protect their intellectual property. Any effort to collect and widely distribute the content of individual syllabi would have to address this issue.

 

 

Naming Aycock Residence Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill

Following the recent decision remove Charles Brantley Aycock’s name from an auditorium at UNC-Greensboro, which followed similar moves last year at East Carolina and Duke, we took a look to see what we could find in University Archives related to the naming of Aycock Residence Hall at UNC.

It didn’t take long for somebody to suggest naming a building at UNC after Charles Brantley Aycock. Just a couple of weeks after the former governor died in 1912, the President of the newly-formed Aycock Memorial Association wrote to UNC President Francis Venable: “There is no educational memorial which could be more fitting than a building at the University.” [University Papers, 20 April 1912]

It would be another sixteen years before UNC named a building for Aycock. During a period of rapid expansion in the 1920s, the university completed four new dorms in 1924. Known for several years simply as “New Dorms,” they finally received names in 1928. The Board of Trustees reported on the names in the minutes from their June 11, 1928 meeting:

“Mr. [John Sprunt] Hill for the Building Committee recommended that the policy be adopted in naming teachers’ buildings for great teachers and dormitories for other distinguished citizens; further that the new class-room building be named ‘Bingham Hall’ and the four new dormitories for Chas. B. Aycock, John W. Graham, W.N. Everett and Dr. R.H. Lewis and that the new library be named ‘The University Library.’ On motion, the above recommendations were adopted.”

That’s about it. There was only a passing mention of the naming in the Daily Tar Heel and nothing that we could find in the University Papers, where most of the early correspondence of the president of the university is held. It is not that unusual that there is nothing in the administrative correspondence; then, as now, the Board of Trustees had the final say on building names at UNC.

Given the strong feelings about Aycock both at UNC and statewide, it’s a little surprising that it took so long to name a building in his honor. In 1904, President Venable wrote to Governor Aycock asking him to consider accepting an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UNC (Aycock initially refused, but would receive the honor a few years later). Venable wrote, “In the twenty-five years I have spent in the State, I know of no one who has so served her highest interests as you have, and the influence of your administration will be felt for a long time to come.”

Venable was hardly alone in his praise. After Aycock died in 1912, the UNC Board of Trustees passed a resolution in honor of Aycock’s work on education:

“The Board of Trustees desire to place on record their deep sense of loss in the death of Ex Governor Charles B. Aycock, who as a member of this Board and of the Executive committee rendered most efficient service and attested his love for the University. During his administration as Governor, the cause of education was greatly advanced in this state and at all times he was ready to give encouragement to those who were striving to uplift this cause in the South and ended his life with a plea for the education of the child. He gave his best efforts in service for others, and while we will miss his companionship and wise advice, his memory will remain to urge us to follow the example which he has left of striving to do good to those who most need the benefit of Education. To his widow and family we extend our sincere sympathy and request our President to communicate to them this tribute of respect and direct the same to be entered on our minutes.”

The views of the Board of Trustees at the time were shared by many white leaders around the state. Aycock did support public education, but ensured that substantially more support would go toward schools for white students. The Trustees would not have found this unusual; they were overseeing an institution that strictly prohibited African American students from attending and had only just begun experimenting with allowing women to enroll.

Neither the note from Venable or the Board of Trustees resolution mention Aycock’s prominent role during the Democratic Party’s 1898 white supremacy campaign, nor do they note his strong support for a constitutional amendment in 1900 that effectively disenfranchised nearly all African American voters in the state. The prevailing view of Aycock in the media at the time — it is often reflected in the Daily Tar Heel — was of a benevolent “education governor.” We did not find anything in the contemporary statements from UNC leaders reflecting on other aspects of Aycock’s legacy.

Our quick look into the archives did not, by any means, uncover everything related to Aycock and UNC. He had a long relationship with the university, first as a student, later as a prominent alumnus, and then a three-time member of the Board of Trustees. Students and researchers who wish to dig deeper can find a significant amount of correspondence to and from Aycock in the University Papers as well as in manuscript collections in the Southern Historical Collection.

 

The 1939 Correspondence Between Pauli Murray and Frank Porter Graham

The Records of the Office of the President of the UNC System under Frank Porter Graham (1932-1949) include several folders labeled “Race and Ethnic Relations: Negroes.” These folders include clippings and correspondence providing a first-hand look at the actions of the university as it battled accusations of racism and fought to prevent African Americans from enrolling at UNC. Most of these folders have been digitized and are fully accessible through the online finding aid.

Included in the folder from 1939 is a remarkable series of letters between Pauli Murray and Frank Porter Graham. Murray, who was the descendant of enslaved people and enslavers (including an early trustee of the University), had grown up in Durham and was part of a family with deep ties to North Carolina. In 1938, she had recently graduated from Hunter College in New York and applied to enroll in the graduate school at UNC. Her application was ultimately rejected (UNC would not admit its first African American student until 1951), but her attempts drew national attention and brought a direct response from UNC system president Frank Porter Graham.

Pauli Murray to Frank Porter Graham, 17 January 1939, page one.
Pauli Murray to Frank Porter Graham, 17 January 1939, page one.

In Murray’s first letter, dated January 17, 1939 [page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ], she challenges the idea that she can obtain a “separate but equal” graduate education at one of the state’s historically black colleges. She writes that it is the excellent reputation of UNC, particularly the department of social science and faculty members Howard Odum and Guy Benton Johnson, that inspired her application. Murray’s letter is marked by her optimism. She argues that any hesitation among the students about admitting African Americans should be answered by “frank, open discussion” and a “give-and-take process where prejudices are openly aired and accounted for, where correct interpretations are made and where enlightenment is gained in an atmosphere of mutual co-operation and respect.”

Graham does not reply until February 3 [page 1 | 2 ], saying that all of his time has been taken up with lobbying the state legislature to avoid serious cuts to the UNC budget. In his response, Graham goes over the reasons for the university’s rejection of Murray’s application, noting the “provision in the Constitution of North Carolina requiring the separation of the races in public education.” He also warns Murray against forcing a “popular referendum on the race issue,” saying that the results would “cause a throwback to a darker time.” He advocates gradual progress, starting with improving conditions for the historically black colleges.

Graham to Murray, 3 February 1939.
Graham to Murray, 3 February 1939.

Graham closes with a surprisingly honest description of the challenges he faces, which reads like a weary acknowledgement of his inability to help: “As you may know, I am under very bitter attack in some parts of North Carolina and the lower south for what little I have tried to do in behalf of the Negro people, organized and unorganized workers and other underprivileged groups. I realize I am also under attack because I understand the limitations under which we must work in order to make the next possible advance.”

Murray responded quickly, in a short but powerful letter on February 6. She says simply that “the Constitution of North Carolina is inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and should be changed to meet the ideals set forth by the first citizens of our country.”

Murray to Graham, 6 February 1939.
Murray to Graham, 6 February 1939.

She then explains that she can not and will not wait for gradual progress, using language that could serve as a rallying cry to the generations of activists who followed her: “We of the younger generation cannot compromise with our ideals of human equality. We have seen the consequences of such compromises in the bloody pages of human history, and we must hold fast, using all of our passion and our reason.”

The full story of Murray’s attempts to enroll at UNC is told in Chapter 11 of her autobiography, Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage  and in the article “Admitting Pauli Murray” by Glenda Gilmore (Journal of Women’s History 14.2, 2002, pp. 62-67). Murray discussed her struggle with UNC in an interview she did with the Southern Oral History Program in 1976.

 

 

Arrington v. Taylor: The Daily Tar Heel and Student Activity Fees

The Daily Tar Heel (DTH,) founded as the Tar Heel by the UNC Athletic Association in 1893, has long been a staple of life at UNC. However, the student paper faced a significant legal challenge to its finances and operations in the 1970s.

Since the 1920s, the Daily Tar Heel had been partially funded by mandatory student fees. On July 25, 1972, four UNC students filed suit against the Chancellor of the University, the President of the Consolidated University, the Chancellor for Business and Finance, the Board of Trustees, and the Board of Governors alleging that the use of student activity fees to finance the Daily Tar Heel violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. These students argued that they were being forced to endorse the opinions and political candidates supported in print by the Daily Tar Heel despite being contrary to their personal beliefs. The students believed that anyone who disagreed with the opinions published by the Daily Tar Heel should have the corresponding portion of their student fees returned and have the option not to financially support the student newspaper. As plaintiffs, the students provided a long and detailed list of every opinion the DTH published with which they disagreed:

60. The plaintiffs disagree with the positions taken by The Daily Tar Heel concerning the adoption of a Chapel Hill and Carrboro Bus System, the use of busing to integrate public school, James C. Gardner, Spiro T. Agnew, The United States intervention in Cambodia, the impeachment and removal of Richard M. Nixon, the appointment of William H. Rehnquist, the death penalty, the Equal Rights Amendment, student strikes, Food Worker’s strikes, protests against the war in Southeast Asia, and abortion….

62. The plaintiffs disagree with the positions taken by The Daily Tar Heel concerning the National Student Association, and the continued subsidization of The Daily Tar Heel.

63. The plaintiffs disagree with the positions taken reportorially by The Daily Tar Heel concerning United States intervention in Cambodia, the Vietnam Moratorium, the Equal Rights Amendment, the lettuce boycott, student political polls, the Black Student Movement, the DTH Legal Defense Fund, and civil liberties in Pitt County.

64. The plaintiffs disagree with the positions taken in and through signed columns in The Daily Tar Heel concerning the Equal Rights Amendment, revolutionary activity, and Wilbur Hobby.

[Robert Lane Arrington, et al. v. Ferebee Taylor, William Friday et al. – Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Opinion, from Assistants to the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Susan H. Ehringhaus Records, 1964-1985, #40031, University Archives]

The judge hearing the case ultimately ruled that no constitutional rights were being violated. He based this on the fact that while the DTH “advocates positions on various matters,” the paper “speaks only for those which control its content at any given time” and does not purport to speak for the entire student body. Further the judge stated that “The Daily Tar Heel‘s position on a given subject is no more attributable to (and therefore imposed upon) plaintiffs than is the position of the Federal Government on South Vietnam attributable to each of the citizens who annually pay their federal taxes.” While the judge ruled against the student plaintiffs in 1974, the case was subsequently appealed, and a second group of students later filed a nearly identical suit that lasted into the 1980s.

In 1977, a student body referendum created a constitutional amendment that guaranteed the Daily Tar Heel 16% of the Student Activity Fees.

[1997 Authorization of a Referendum on DTH Student Activity Fees, from Student Government of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1919-2011, #40169, University Archives]

In 1989, the DTH incorporated as an educational 501c(3) non-profit entity, separate from the University. In 1993, the Daily Tar Heel ceased being financed by student activity fees and became wholly independent from the University. Such financial independence had long been a goal of the Daily Tar Heel, being described as a “gradual process” in a 1973 Daily Tar Heel article that asked for help funding their legal defense in the Arrington v. Taylor suit.

The_Daily_Tar_Heel_Sat__Sep_15__1973_
Daily Tar Heel, 15 September 1973. Image via Newspapers.com

For more on the history of the DTH, see the Daily Tar Heel’s timeline.

The Battle Challenge: Part Two

Ward_Flier_800-618x800Montgomery Ward Catalog Challenge, Part II
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015
5 p.m. Reception and viewing of materials | Lobby
5:30 p.m. Program | Pleasants Family Assembly Room, Wilson Library
Free and open to the public

Join us Tuesday evening for the final installment of the Kemp Plummer Battle Montgomery Ward Catalog Challenge, a program set in motion 100 years ago.

In 1915, former UNC president Kemp Plummer Battle presented the North Carolina Historical Society with a metal box containing a current Montgomery Ward catalog and a letter outlining a challenge – the box was to be opened in 1965 and in 2015, and the catalog compared to one from the present day. Back in April, we held the first installment of this challenge, which featured talks from UNC professors John Kasson and Dana McMahan. Tuesday evening, the discussion continues with talks from professors Peter Coclanis and Lee Craig.

Fitz Brundage, chair of the Department of History at UNC, will introduce the program. Special guest John Baumann, President and CEO of Colony Brands, which owns and operates Montgomery Ward catalog and online retailer, will also make brief remarks on the topic “Montgomery Ward Today.”

In preparation for the event, the 1915 and 1965 Montgomery Ward catalogs and Robert B. House’s 1965 essay have been digitized and are available online.

We hope you’ll join us Tuesday for the finale of this 100-year challenge!

 

 

 

Electing a President: 85 Years Ago Today

Yearbook dedication to Frank Porter Graham, 1931. From the Yackety Yack, DigitalNC.
Yearbook dedication to Frank Porter Graham, 1931. From the Yackety Yack, DigitalNC.

Eighty-five years ago today on June 9, 1930, Frank Porter Graham was elected president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

According to the minutes of the Board of Trustees:

Mr. A.H. Graham, Chairman of the Fact-finding Committee appointed at the meeting on March 4, 1930, to investigate the availability of a new president for the University, made a very comprehensive report. He laid before the Board the names of the following ten persons, any one of whom, in the opinion of the committee, would make a satisfactory president: H.G. Baity, R.D.W. Connor, Frank P. Graham, R.B. House, Archibald Henderson, Louis R. Wilson, all of the University faculty, Ivey Lewis, of the University of Virginia, Howard Dement, of the Asheville School for Boys, Skelton Phelps, of Peabody College and John L. McConnaughy, of Connecticut Wesleyan.

Four ballots were taken, in which professors R.D.W. Connor and Graham took the lead. In the end, Graham won with 47 of 82 votes. The minutes continue:

Mr. Frank P. Graham having received a majority of the votes cast was declared elected president of the University. Mr. Daniels moved to make his election unanimous which was carried.

Governor Morrison moved that a committee of three be appointed to notify the new President of his election and bring him before the Board. Seconded and carried, the following committee being appointed: Messrs. Morrison, Daniels, and John J. Parker.

Judge Biggs moved that the salary of the new President be the same as that received by retiring President Chase. Carried.

President-elect Graham being presented to the Board was visibly overcome with emotion at the honor conferred upon him. After a moment of silence he announced that “with your help and with the help of God I accept the Presidency of the University.”

A brief recess was taken in order that the trustees might congratulate the new President.

Board of Trustees Minutes, June 9, 1930. From the Records of the Board of Trustees (#40001), University Archives, Wilson Library.