A New Addition of Athletics Photographs from the 1960s and 1970s

We are excited to announce that a new accession of photographs to the Department of Athletics Collection is available for research. This accession is particularly special since it contains images of less-documented sports — including women’s sports and intramural sports — from the 1960s and 1970s.

Included in this addition are images of the Titleholder’s Championship (also called the Women’s Pro Tournament), held at Southern Pines and sponsored by UNC in 1972.  The Titleholder’s Championship was only a handful of championship-level events for professional women’s golf in the 1970s, and the winner of the event — Sandra Palmer — was one of the most accomplished female golfers of the time. The addition also includes photographs of the 1963 renovations to Kenan Stadium.

The selection of photos below include images of men’s intramural handball; women’s intramural basketball, volleyball, tennis, and bowling.

 

A Beautiful Legacy: Collecting Greek Life at UNC

Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel and House Corporation Director Karen O’Donnell Dias discuss which materials the chapter will present to University Archives first.
Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel and House Corporation Director Karen O’Donnell Dias discuss which materials the chapter will present to University Archives first.

Over the past year and a half, UNC Chapel Hill’s University Archives has actively pursued student groups in an effort to better represent the history of student life. However, there are a lot of student groups to choose from on our active campus. One of our priorities has been to collect Greek life materials. Because more than 3,000 students on our campus are involved in Greek life, fraternities and sororities are a part of the Carolina Experience for many students.

This semester, Phi Mu will be the first of UNC’s sororities to deposit its materials in University Archives for safekeeping. While we have some fraternity records (including Delta Kappa Epsilon and Chi Psi), sorority records have been noticeably absent in our holdings. As the Gamma Lambda chapter of Phi Mu approached planning for its 50th anniversary in 2014, alumnae began to reflect on their chapter’s history. Realizing that historic materials were stored in several disparate places and that many items could use conservation and preservation, they were eager to find a way to store them in a single location under archival conditions. Participating in the new University Archives initiative will accomplish this and facilitate all future anniversary research.

Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel (center left) shows University Archives and Records Management graduate assistant Morgan Jones a construction photo of the sorority’s house at 211 Henderson Street as Chapter Historian Lauren Spoenimon (far left) and Chapter President Mary Maher (far right) look on.
Phi Mu Chapter Association (alumnae) President Debra Pickrel (center left) shows University Archives and Records Management graduate assistant Morgan Jones a construction photo of the sorority’s house at 211 Henderson Street as Chapter Historian Lauren Spoenimon (far left) and Chapter President Mary Maher (far right) look on.

When Phi Mu’s Gamma Lambda chapter colonized at Carolina in 1964, the Board of Trustees had just approved the admittance of women regardless of their residence or major; however, admittance was still extremely competitive because of the scarcity of housing for female students. With the loan of Phi Mu’s 1964-1965 scrapbook and other materials to University Archives, researchers and chapter sisters alike will be able to understand how Phi Mu began its first 50 years on Carolina’s campus.

We look forward to working with Phi Mu as well as other sororities this year to increase the representation of Greek organizations in University Archives!

If you are a member of a Greek fraternity or sorority and wish to deposit materials in the archives for safe keeping, please contact us!

New Accession: Dr. Herbert Bodman Papers

The University Archives recently acquired the papers of Dr. Herbert L. Bodman, Jr., a UNC professor of Islamic studies who passed away in 2011. Dating from the early 1950s when Bodman was studying in Lebanon, the papers deal primarily with his dissertation research on community identities in the Syrian city of Aleppo during the eighteenth century. To this day, Aleppo is considered the largest city in Syria and has been the site of many historical conflicts, both ancient and modern, from the Crusades to the current civil war.

A multi-linguist, Bodman’s research spans English, French, and Arabic and sheds light on his exhaustive use and translation of a variety of sources. More abstractly, it offers a window into the research process before the time of computers when copious indexing was necessary. Below are some interesting notes from a meeting he had with Arab political leaders–one of whom appears to be Akram al-Hawrani (or Hourani), a leading member of the Baath Party–on March 5, 1953, in which they discuss the idea of Arab unity:

Meeting Notes
“Meeting with Akram Hourani & al-Afflah, 5 March 1953,” Dr. Herbert Bodman Papers, #40388, University Archives

Faculty papers occupy an essential place in the university’s history and, as Herbert Bodman’s papers demonstrate, also offer insight on the world at large.

“A Dialogue Between Old and New” and “Knowledge Building(s)”

Two new exhibits featuring University Archives materials are on display in the North Carolina Collection Gallery and the Davis Library Gallery starting this week!

A Dialogue Between Old and New and Knowledge Building(s) Posters

Continue reading ““A Dialogue Between Old and New” and “Knowledge Building(s)””

Collecting the Student Experience

What are your fondest memories of college? Were they formed outside the classroom, hanging out with your friends? Did you warmly remember hours spent singing with the chorus, helping your friend run in student elections, or building sets for an upcoming play?

For participants, these activities rounded out their student experiences. Sadly, the events and memories are too fleeting; little pieces are lost with each graduating class until they are all but forgotten. Last fall, The Daily Tar Heel highlighted this lack of student organizational history in an article focusing on Company Carolina. The article incurred the wrath of many Company Carolina alumni, who believed they had left the group with plenty of unforgettable history!

University Archives would like to help students and alumni better preserve their collective memories. Towards that goal, we are actively seeking to assemble records produced by student organizations. These records might include items such as meeting minutes, rules of governance, production records, ephemera, photographs, and website content. This summer, as we test the best methods for collecting these records, we are focusing on two student theatre groups: the already-inspired Company Carolina and the long-running Lab! Theatre. Eventually, we hope to make contact with many other student groups.

Here’s where you can help! We encourage all current student groups to contact us so we can discuss transferring their records to the University Archives. We are also happy to offer groups advice on how they can preserve their own records. If you are a UNC alumnus with records from your own time working with a student group, we would also like to hear from you! Help us make the student experience part of Carolina’s permanent archival record.

Scene from Lab! Theatre's 2000 production of "Crimes of the Heart"

New Acquisition

Thanks to the generosity of Jennifer Manning (’89, ’91 MSLS), a founding member of UNITAS, a multicultural living and learning program at UNC, the University Archives now has material documenting the history of this organization, including a photograph of the charter members from 1987-1988 and a copy of the Daily Tar Heel insert, Omnibus, from September 17, 1987 that describes the purpose of UNITAS.

For more information on UNITAS, visit their website at:  http://housing.unc.edu/residence-life/living-learning-communities/unitas.html

Jennifer read about our efforts to collect the records of student organizations in the Carolina Alumni Review (http://alumni.unc.edu/article.aspx?sid=8132).  She has offered to contact her friends for additional material as well as pledged to make a monetary donation to the University Archives for every donation her and her friends make.

Thanks you Jennifer for supporting the University Archives and helping our efforts to document the history of student organizations at UNC.

UNITAS Charter Members, 1987-1988
Photograph of the UNITAS Charter Members, 1987-1988, taken in front of Carmichael Dormitory in the Fall of 1987

Front row, left to right:
Jewel Ward, Jennifer Manning, Barbara Ross, Shiho Koda, Jeff Shipman, Donna Leinwand, Chrystal Redding.

Second row, left to right:
Mona Sheth, Amy Shutz, Beth Yongue (hugginh “Chilly” Nguyen), Chinh “Chilly” Nguyen, Robert D’Arruda, “Bud” Thornton Long (in striped shirt), Tim Dore.

Third row, left to right:
Samir Amin (standing, in blue shirt), Traci Hopkins, Marvin Peguese, Leah Kim, Nick Ackerman (with arms crossed), Rachel Stiffler, Ann Bunge (standing, white shirt).

Also: Suresh “Jay” da Silva (in shorts, far right).
Next to him:  Jovan Jones.
Behind them: Faculty advisor, Dr. Craig Calhoun (now at NYU in the Dept. of Sociology).
Next to Jovan Jones: Faculty advisor, Dr. Trudier Harris (now a visiting scholar-in-residence at the University of Alabama).
Above Nick Ackerman: Priti Shah and Rachel Stiffler.
Very back left: Laurie Winkler (in red sweater)
Waving hand in upper far right: James Benton

Do you know any others?  If so, please contact us.

Cool New Collection: Professor Bob Goldstein’s Gig Posters for Science

 

This past spring University Archives acquired a wonderful collection of posters from UNC Professor Bob Goldstein.  Goldstein creates these posters to advertise guest lectures and the distinguished lecture series the within the Department of Biology.

The posters are “gig” style posters, similar to the ones you see plastered on telephone poles and kiosks around town advertising shows at local music venues.  In fact, this is where Goldstein found the inspiration to begin creating these unique posters.  They were screen printed locally at design and print shop The Merch.

Take a look at the posters in the Gig Posters for Science Flickr stream, and if you want to see the real thing, come visit us in Wilson Library!

(Image courtesy of Flickr user gigpsforscis)