KHMER Intellectuals: University of North Carolina

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, North Carolina, or simply Carolina) is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. The university is the oldest in, and flagship of, the University of North Carolina system. First enrolling students in 1795, UNC is the oldest public university in the United States, and is one of the original eight schools known as a Public Ivy.

www.unc.edu

Academically, all undergraduates receive a liberal arts education and have the option to pursue a major within the professional schools of the university later in their undergraduate career. In both teaching and research, UNC has been highly ranked by publications such as BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. Along with Duke University in Durham and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the university forms one of the corners of the Research Triangle.

UNC has a strong history in athletics, most notably in men's basketball and women's soccer. The North Carolina Tar Heels share rivalries with other Tobacco Road schools and have provided many olympians to United States teams. The student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel has won national awards for collegiate media, while the student radio station WXYC provided the world's first internet radio broadcast.

History

Chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly on December 11, 1789, the university's cornerstone was laid on October 12, 1793, near the ruins of a chapel, chosen due to its central location within the state. Beginning instruction of undergraduates in 1795, UNC is the oldest public university in the United States, and the only that awarded degrees in the eighteenth century.

During the Civil War, North Carolina Governor David Lowry Swain persuaded Confederate President Jefferson Davis to exempt some students from the draft, so the university was among few in the Confederacy that managed to stay open. However, Chapel Hill still suffered the loss of more of its population during the war than any village in the South, and when student numbers did not recover, the university was forced to close during Reconstruction from December 1, 1870 until September 6, 1875.

Despite initial skepticism from university President Frank Porter Graham, on March 27, 1931, legislation was passed to group UNC with the State College of Agriculture and Engineering and the Women's College to form the Consolidated University of North Carolina. In 1963, the consolidated university was made fully coeducational. As a result, the Women's College was renamed the "University of North Carolina at Greensboro," and the University of North Carolina became the "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill." Predating the other two schools by 98 years, UNC became the de facto flagship university of the new statewide system.

During the 1960s, the campus was the location of significant political protest. Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protests about local racial segregation which began quietly in Franklin Street restaurants led to mass demonstrations and disturbance. The climate of civil unrest prompted the 1963 Speaker Ban Law prohibiting speeches by communists on state campuses in North Carolina. The law was immediately criticized by university Chancellor William Brantley Aycock and university President William Friday, but was not reviewed by the North Carolina General Assembly until 1965. Small amendments to allow "infrequent" visits failed to placate the student body, especially when the university's board of trustees overruled new Chancellor Paul Frederick Sharp's decision to allow speaking invitations to Marxist speaker Herbert Aptheker and civil liberties activist Frank Wilkinson; however, the two speakers came to Chapel Hill anyway. Wilkinson spoke off campus, while more than 1,500 students viewed Aptheker's speech across a low campus wall at the edge of campus, christened "Dan Moore's Wall" by The Daily Tar Heel for Governor Dan K. Moore. A group of UNC students, led by Student Body President Paul Dickson, filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, and on February 20, 1968, the Speaker Ban Law was struck down.

From the late 1990s onward, UNC expanded rapidly with a 15% increase in total student population to more than 28,000 by 2007. This was accompanied by the construction of new facilities, funded in part by the "Carolina First" fundraising campaign and an endowment that increased fourfold to over $2 billion in just ten years. Professor Oliver Smithies was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2007 for his work in genetics.

Notable leaders of the university include the 26th Governor of North Carolina, David Lowry Swain (president 1835-1868); and Edwin Anderson Alderman (1896-1900), who was also president of Tulane University and the University of Virginia. The current chancellor is Holden Thorp, appointed at the age of 43 after less than 1 year as Dean of Arts & Science.

Campus

UNC's 729-acre (3.0 km2) campus is dominated by two central quads: Polk Place and McCorkle Place. Polk Place is named after North Carolina native and university alumnus President James K. Polk, and McCorkle Place is named in honor of Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, the original author of the bill requesting the university's charter. Adjacent to Polk Place is a sunken brick courtyard known as the Pit where students will gather, often engaging in lively debate with speakers such as the Pit Preacher. The Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, located in the heart of campus, tolls the quarter-hour. In 1999, UNC was one of sixteen recipients of the American Society of Landscape Architects Medallion Awards and was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art.

Library

UNC's library system, which comprises a number of individual libraries housed throughout its campus, holds more than 5.8 million volumes in total. UNC's North Carolina Collection is the largest collection of holdings about any single state nationwide. The library has an extensive Southern and rare book collection, housed in Wilson Library. The university is home to ibiblio, one of the world's largest collections of freely available information including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies.

The Davis Library, situated near the Pit, is the main library and the largest academic facility and state-owned building in North Carolina. The R.B. House Undergraduate Library is located in the same general area. Wilson Library, which was the university's main library prior to the construction of Davis, now houses special collections, rare books, and temporary exhibits.

Academic Reputation

The university was named a Public Ivy by Richard Moll in his 1985 book The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, and in later guides by Howard and Matthew Greene. Many of UNC's professional schools have achieved high rankings in publications such as Forbes Magazine, as well as annual U.S. News & World Report surveys. The business school's program was fifth "Best Executive MBA" by BusinessWeek in 2005. Other highly ranked schools include library and information studies, medicine, pharmacy, and public health. Nationally, UNC is in the top ten public universities for research.

The undergraduate program has ranked in the top 30 in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently among the top five public universities, just behind UC Berkeley, University of Virginia, UCLA, and the University of Michigan. Kiplinger's Personal Finance has also ranked UNC as the number one "best value" public school for in-state students. Similarly, the university is first among public universities and ninth overall in "Great Schools, Great Prices", based on academic quality, net cost of attendance and average student debt. Along with one of the nation's most acclaimed undergraduate honors programs in a public institution, UNC also has the highest percentage of undergraduates studying abroad for any public institution.