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Collection Number: 40181

Collection Title: Cooperative Program in the Humanities Records, 1963-1973

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.


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Size 1.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items)
Abstract The Cooperative Program in the Humanities was a joint program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Created in 1963, it operated until 1971, supported by grants from various foundations. Its chief activity was the awarding of fellowships to humanities faculty at colleges and universities in Virginia and the Carolinas. Selected faculty spent an academic year engaged in study and writing at UNC and/or Duke. The program also sponsored the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, a summer institute that continued for several years after the program ended. Records include correspondence of the program's chairs, minutes of its Joint Central Committee, and various reports and brochures related to its activities, including some materials relating to the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Creator Cooperative Program in the Humanities.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. University Archives.
Language English
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Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Restrictions to Use
No usage restrictions.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Cooperative Program in the Humanities Records #40181, University Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Acquisitions Information
Received from the Department of History in March 1995.
Sensitive Materials Statement
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.
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Processed by: University Archives Staff, March 1995

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

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The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

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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 and 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, N.C., or Chapel Hill, N.C., they received from the program an amount equivalent to their salaries at their home institutions. Between 1964 and 1971, 98 scholars from 38 colleges and universities participated, producing as a result 18 books, 80 articles, and numerous essays, conference papers, poems, and musical compositions.

The Cooperative Program in the Humanities took on the responsibility of recruiting advanced graduate students at Duke University or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to susbstitute for program fellows at their home institutions. In addition, the program brought visiting professors to Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 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 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 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 in the Humanities ended.

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:

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

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Correspondence of the program's chairs, minutes of its Joint Central Committee, and various reports and brochures related to its activities, including some materials relating to the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Cooperative Program in the Humanities Records, 1963-1973.

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