A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

(Adapted from A Guide to the Archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1995), William S. Powell, Professor Emeritus Department of History, UNC-Chapel Hill)

North Carolina's first constitution, adopted in 1776, directed the establishment of "one or more universities," in which "all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted." State support, it further directed, should be provided so that instruction might be available "at low prices." But the American Revolution intervened, and it was not until 1789, the year that George Washington became president of the new nation, that the General Assembly chartered the University. Despite constitutional instructions, the Assembly made no appropriations for the University, leaving the trustees to secure land and money.

Legislator and trustee William R. Davie, who had been instrumental in securing passage of the charter, took the lead in organizing the University. His efforts earned him the appellation "father of the University." On October 12, 1793, on a hilltop near the center of the state, amid the colorful fall foliage of dogwood, oak, and tulip trees, Davie presided over the laying of the cornerstone for the University's first building. Many years later a large poplar, or tulip tree, first mentioned in 1818 and still standing near the center of the old campus, was named Davie Poplar in his honor.

The site of the University lay in Orange County at the crossing of north-south and east-west roads. It was known as New Hope Chapel Hill, after the small Anglican chapel that stood nearby. The surrounding area was sparsely populated, the closest town being Hillsborough, the county seat, twelve miles away. For two years the University consisted of a single building, a two-story brick structure that came to be called Old East. It is now a National Historic Landmark, the oldest state university building in America.

The University of North Carolina opened to students on January 15, 1795. The first student, Hinton James of New Hanover County, arrived on February 12. By March there were two professors and forty-one students present. The following year the University began construction of its second building, Person Hall, which would become the chapel. In 1798 it laid the cornerstone of Main, or South Building. Both these buildings are older than the earliest buildings at all other American state universities.

The nation's second state university did not begin classes until 1801, when a few students from nearby academies assembled for instruction under a large tree at Athens, Georgia. By then the University of North Carolina had graduated four classes, and there were to be three more before Georgia issued its first diplomas.

During the early nineteenth century the trustees strongly supported the development of the University. Though their stated purpose was to provide trained leadership for the state, they adopted the customary classical curriculum. In 1815 they expanded it to include the natural sciences. Professor of Chemistry Denison Olmstead and Professor of Mathematics Elisha Mitchell prepared the nation's first geological survey in the 1820s. In 1831 President Joseph Caldwell directed construction of the first astronomical observatory at a state university. Student enrollment increased steadily; and by 1860, among America's institutions of higher learning, only Yale College had more students.

Young men from many states came to Chapel Hill for their education, particularly sons of families who had recently left North Carolina to settle elsewhere in the South. Graduates of the University included the governors of numerous states and a president and vice president of the United States as well as cabinet members, clergymen, diplomats, engineers, geologists, judges, legislators, surveyors, and teachers.

The Civil War closed many colleges and universities, but the University of North Carolina remained open. During the war, however, University buildings deteriorated, and equipment disappeared during the federal occupation of the campus. Beginning in 1865, Reconstruction politicians attempted to direct the course of the University by naming professors, trustees, and other officers. In 1870, in response to these pressures, the Board of Trustees closed the University.

With a change in the political leadership of the state, the University reopened in 1875 under new trustees. The remainder of the decade saw rapid expansion of the curriculum. In 1876 came the announcement of a program of graduate study for advanced degrees.

The first university summer school for teachers in America opened in Chapel Hill in 1877, and two years later the University established medical and pharmaceutical courses as regular offerings. Although many of North Carolina's teachers and lawyers had studied at the University, it was not until 1885 that a teacher training program became an established part of the curriculum and not until 1894 that a law school was established.

For nearly a century the University survived on student fees, gifts, escheats, and various minor sources of income. Alumni and other benefactors provided all the funding for the construction of campus buildings. In 1881, finally, the University received the first legislative appropriation for its support.

Another important development of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was the conducting of scientific research at the University. In 1892 William Rand Kenan, Jr., working in the University laboratory of Professor Francis P. Venable, participated in experiments that resulted in the identification of calcium carbide and the development of a formula for making acetylene gas.

In 1897 the University admitted its first female student. By the end of the century 512 students were enrolled with a faculty of thirty-five. By the Commencement of 1900 the University had awarded thirty-one master's degrees and seven doctoral degrees--the first of each in 1883.

With the beginning of the twentieth century the University entered a period of rapid growth. In 1904 Phi Beta Kappa established a chapter on the campus, the first chapter in North Carolina. In 1913 the University reorganized its offerings in the field of education and created both the School of Education and the Bureau of Extension. The latter made the University's resources more widely available across the state. In 1915 student enrollment reached one thousand. Also that year alumnus Isaac E. Emerson gave the University funds to build a stadium on its athletic field. In 1927 William Rand Kenan, Jr., donated funds for a separate football stadium.

The endowed Kenan Professorships Fund, established in 1917, provided incentive for excellence in teaching and research. The decade following its establishment saw the founding of more professional schools as well as the University's first research institute. The School of Commerce, founded in 1919, is now the Kenan-Flagler Business School. The School of Public Welfare began in 1920 as an outgrowth of the Department of Sociology and is now the School of Social Work. The University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South, was incorporated in 1922.

Also in 1922 the University was elected to membership in the Association of American Universities. Two years later Professor of Sociology Howard W. Odum organized the Institute for Research in Social Science. By 1930 the University had 2,600 students and a faculty of 222 full- and eighty-five part-time members. Teaching, study, and research took place at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels in twelve colleges and schools and in twenty-one departments.

In 1931 the General Assembly created the Consolidated University of North Carolina, a three-campus system governed by a single Board of Trustees and consisting of the University at Chapel Hill, the Woman's College at Greensboro, and North Carolina State College at Raleigh. As an economy measure during the Depression and as a means of eliminating duplication, the trustees allocated each campus specific roles in higher education for the state. The offices of the Consolidated University were located on the Chapel Hill campus, and University President Frank Porter Graham became the Consolidated system's first president.

The 1930s saw a great deal of new construction on the campus as federal funds became available to create jobs for the unemployed. New dormitories, classroom buildings, a gymnasium, and other facilities and improvements resulted in part from this source. World War II saw further construction and alteration as units of the U.S. military used University facilities to train their personnel.

In 1931 the School of Library Science (now the School of Information and Library Science) opened. The following year Professor of Law Albert Coates founded the Institute of Government. First of its kind in the nation, the Institute became an official part of the University in 1942. In 1936 the School of Public Health was founded. The University continued its cooperation with the U.S. military by establishing Naval and Air Force ROTC units on campus, in 1940 and 1947 respectively.

In 1949 the new schools of Dentistry and Nursing joined the older schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Public Health to form the Division of Health Affairs. The University thus became one of the few in the nation with schools in the five health professions. The opening of North Carolina Memorial Hospital in 1952 provided clinical facilities for the Division of Health Affairs.

Also in 1949, the University dedicated its Morehead Planetarium. It organized the School of Journalism (now the School of Journalism and Mass Communication) in 1950, although courses in journalism had been offered for many years. The William Hayes Ackland Art Museum was completed in 1958, and the following year the University became one of the first to install a large computer system.

The University's library facilities expanded greatly with the completion of Walter Royal Davis Library in 1985, followed by the renovation of Louis Round Wilson Library for use by the special collections. Davis Library remains the largest academic facility as well as the largest state building in North Carolina. The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed other significant building projects. Among these were the Smith Center for athletic and cultural events, the Kenan Center, Fetzer Gymnasium, Carmichael Residence Hall, and new facilities for the departments of Art, Chemistry, and Computer Science. In the Division of Health Affairs, new buildings included Memorial Hospital's Critical Care Center, the Lineberger Cancer Research Building, and the Public Health and Environmental Sciences Building.

In 1990 the campus consisted of nearly two hundred buildings used by over 23,000 students and almost 2,000 full-time faculty. The Alumni Association counted more than 168,000 living alumni. During its history, the University has trained over three quarters of a million men and women, exclusive of those who attended only summer school or special courses. In 1995 its fourteen colleges and schools provided instruction in more than a hundred fields, offering sixty-seven baccalaureate, eighty-eight master's, and sixty-one doctoral degree programs, as well as professional degrees in dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, law, and library science.

Selected Bibliography

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Battle, Kemp Plummer. History of the University of North Carolina. 2 vols. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, 1907, 1912.

-------- Memories of an Old-time Tar Heel. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1945.

Berryhill, W. Reece, William B. Blythe, and Isaac H. Manning. Medical Education at Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill: Medical Alumni Office, 1979.

Branson, Lanier. Eugene Cunningham Branson, Humanitarian. Charlotte: Heritage Printers, 1967.

Bursey, Maurice M. Carolina Chemists: Sketches from Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Department of Chemistry, 1982.

-------- Francis Preston Venable of the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill: Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1989.

Chamberlain, Hope Summerell. Old Days in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1926.

Cheek, Neal King. "An Historical Study of the Administrative Actions in the Racial Desegregation of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill." Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1973.

Coates, Albert. What the University of North Carolina Meant to Me. Chapel Hill: Privately published, 1969.

-------- "William Brantley Aycock, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill." Popular Government 25, no. 25 (October 1957).

-------- The Story of the Institute of Government. Chapel Hill: Privately printed, 1981.

Coates, Albert and Gladys. The Story of Student Government in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill: Privately published, [1985].

Connor, R. D. W. A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, 1776-1799. 2 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953.

Dean, Pamela. Women on the Hill: A History of Women at the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, 1987.

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Godfrey, James L. "William Brantley Aycock, University Administrator, 1957-1964." North Carolina Law Review 64, no. 3.

Graham, Edward Kidder. Education and Citizenship and Other Papers. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919.

Gwin, Pamela Jane Blair. "'Poisoned Arrows' from a Tar Heel Journalist: The Public Career of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, 1865-1890." Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1983.

Haisley, Waldo. Physics and Astronomy at Chapel Hill, 1795-1946. Chapel Hill: Printed by the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Physics and Astronomy, 1989.

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King, Arnold K. The Multi-Campus University of North Carolina Comes of Age, 1956-1986. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina System, 1987.

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Russell, Lucy Phillips. A Rare Pattern. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957.

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-------- The Woman Who Rang the Bell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949.

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-------- "Old Times in Chapel Hill." University Magazine, no. ix (May 1884).

-------- "Old Times in Chapel Hill." University Monthly, May 1888.

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Wilson, Louis Round. The University of North Carolina, 1900-1930: The Making of a Modern University. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957.

-------- The University of North Carolina under Consolidation, 1931-1963: History and Appraisal. Chapel Hill: UNC Consolidated Office, 1964.