#40181

                       THE RECORDS OF THE
              COOPERATIVE PROGRAM IN THE HUMANITIES

                             in the

             University Archives and Records Service
                    Wilson Library, CB# 3926
           University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
                   Chapel Hill, North Carolina
                           27514-8890

                           March 1995

     The Cooperative Program in the Humanities was conceived in
1962-1963 by several members of the faculties and administrative
staffs of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and
Duke University, who wanted to combine the resources of the two
schools to support teaching and research in the humanities in the
upper South.  In particular, they wanted to provide professors in
the humanities the opportunity to spend an academic year in
scholarly activity at Durham or Chapel Hill.  In August 1963 the
Ford Foundation granted $800,000 jointly to the two universities
to create the Cooperative Program in the Humanities.  This sum
was expected to last for three years, and the terms of the grant
allowed great flexibility in its expenditure.  Further grants
from the Ford Foundation as well as the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and the
William H. Donner Foundation allowed the Program to enlarge the
number of participants and to extend its work through the 1970-
1971 academic year.

     The Program's main purpose, throughout its existence, was
the awarding of nine-month fellowships to members of humanities
faculties.  Fellows were selected from colleges and universities
in Virginia and the Carolinas.  While residing in Durham or
Chapel Hill, they received from the Program an amount equivalent
to their salaries at their home institutions.  Between 1964 and
1971, ninety-eight scholars from thirty-eight colleges and
universities participated, producing as a result eighteen books,
eighty articles, and numerous essays, conference papers, poems,
and musical compositions.

     The Cooperative Program took on the responsibility of
recruiting advanced graduate students at Duke or UNC to
susbstitute for Fellows at their home institutions.  In addition,
the Program brought visiting professors to Duke and UNC, awarded
a few summer research grants to faculty of the host universities,
and attempted briefly to provide graduate students editorial
experience through internships at the presses of UNC and Duke
University.  Finally, the Program spawned a summer institute, the
Southeastern Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 
This Institute survived for several years after the Cooperative
Program ended, and its papers for that period are contained in a
separate records group.

     The Cooperative Program was run by a Joint Central
Committee, consisting of five faculty members from each
institution.  Chairmen and co-chairmen of the Committee were:

     Chairmen:
          Professor R. M. Lumiansky (Duke), 1963-1965
          Professor James L. Godfrey (UNC), 1965-1971
     Co-chairman:
          Professor O. B. Hardison (UNC), 1963-1965
          Professor John Lievsay (Duke), 1965-1968
          Professor Wesley Kort (Duke), 1968-1970
          Professor Hans Hillerbrand (Duke), 1970-1971

     For further information, see files on the Cooperative
Program in the following records groups in the University
Archives:

          RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF CHANCELLOR
          RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF PROVOST
          RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF
               ARTS AND SCIENCES
          RECORDS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL AND
               RENAISSANCE STUDIES


     The records of the Cooperative Program are arranged in a
single box as follows:

          Correspondence of the Chairman, 1965-1973
          History:  See Final Report, in Reports, below
          Joint Central Committee:
               General, 1964-1968
               Minutes, 1963-1970
          Reports, 1963-1971
          Southeastern Institute for Medieval and Renaissance
                    Studies:
               General, n.d.
               Brochures, 1965-1969
               Minutes, 1963-1969