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Recent decades · 1976–2026
- 1980s
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Albert Coates publishes his last book, on Edward Kidder Graham, Harry Chase and Frank Porter Graham
Coates's final book, published in 1988, paid tribute to the three University presidents he credited with shaping his life.
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John Shelton Reed becomes director of UNC's Institute for Research in Social Science
Sociologist John Shelton Reed directed the Institute for Research in Social Science, later the Odum Institute, from 1988 until he retired in 2000.
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Oliver Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda join the UNC faculty
Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda came to UNC's School of Medicine in 1988; Smithies later described himself as the trailing spouse, UNC having recruited Maeda.
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UNC names its biotechnology building Fordham Hall
In 1988 the university named its biotechnology building Christopher C. Fordham Hall.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1988 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated NC State, 4–1, in the national final.
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Doug Marlette wins the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
Doug Marlette won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for work he did at The Charlotte Observer and The Atlanta Constitution. By then he was working for the Constitution in Atlanta.
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Paul Hardin serves as chancellor of UNC at Chapel Hill
Hardin, who had led Wofford College, Southern Methodist University and Drew University, was chancellor at Chapel Hill from July 1, 1988 to June 30, 1995. His administration covered the university's bicentennial and its fundraising campaign, the argument over a freestanding black cultural center and the housekeepers' class action suit.
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A state highway marker for Hamilton is cast for Churton Street in Hillsborough
The North Carolina highway historical marker G-103, which marks Hamilton's birthplace half a block west as historian, professor and founder of the Southern Historical Collection, was first cast in 1989 for US 70 Business (Churton Street) in Hillsborough.
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Albert Coates, founder of the Institute of Government, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Albert Coates (1896-1989), who founded the Institute of Government at the university, was buried in the cemetery.
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David Zucchino wins the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
David Zucchino, a 1973 UNC graduate, won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for "Being Black in South Africa," his coverage of apartheid for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Southern Oral History Program records histories of UNC people for the bicentennial
For UNC's bicentennial the Southern Oral History Program, then directed by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, added more than 300 interviews with the university's students, chancellors and service workers.
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The North Carolina Collection Gallery opens in Wilson Library
A gallery conceived by North Carolina Collection curator H. G. Jones opened in the east wing of Wilson Library, with R. Neil Fulghum as its first keeper, to exhibit items the library had collected.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1989 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final.
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Downtown Commission asks for a special tax district for downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro
Downtown Commission president Joe Hakan asked the Chapel Hill Town Council for a special service district taxing downtown property 7 cents per $100 to help fund the commission and a free downtown trolley. The council later voted the district down.
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The university and the state quitclaim the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery to the town
A quitclaim deed dated February 22, 1989 released the university's and the state's rights in the cemetery to the Town of Chapel Hill, settling a question of ownership open since the 1920s.
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Sounds of the South conference marks the opening of UNC's Southern Folklife Collection
More than 300 collectors, folklorists, musicians and archivists met at UNC-Chapel Hill for the official opening of the Southern Folklife Collection with the John Edwards Memorial Collection. Daniel W. Patterson, who helped build the collection, was among the presenters with Alan Lomax and Mike Seeger.
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General Assembly renames North Carolina Memorial Hospital as UNC Hospitals at Chapel Hill
Session Law 1989-141, ratified May 25, 1989, replaced the name University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital with University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill throughout the General Statutes and changed the terms of its board members.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1989 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1989 NCAA field hockey title against Old Dominion.
- 1990s
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Louis Rubin hands Algonquin Books to Shannon Ravenel and Robert Rubin
A year after Workman Publishing of New York bought Algonquin, Rubin turned control over to his son Robert and to Shannon Ravenel, who moved the St. Louis office to Chapel Hill.
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The Lester Asheim Scholarship Fund is endowed at UNC's library school
The School of Information and Library Science endowed a scholarship fund in Asheim's name with $30,000; the school later listed it as a doctoral scholarship.
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UNC dedicates the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory
The School of Public Health dedicated McGavran-Greenberg Hall and the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory, with Chancellor Paul Hardin giving the dedication.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1990 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final.
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Willie Scroggs leaves coaching for athletics administration at UNC
Scroggs retired from coaching at the end of the 1990 season to become associate athletic director for game operations and outdoor facilities, a job that grew into responsibility for athletics construction and operations on campus.
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Chuck Stone joins the UNC journalism faculty
Stone came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 1991 and taught journalism there until he retired in 2005, holding the Walter Spearman professorship.
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Students campaign for a freestanding Black Cultural Center
After Sonja Haynes Stone died in 1991, students, faculty and Black athletes at UNC pressed for a freestanding Black Cultural Center named for her. Following marches in September 1992, Chancellor Paul Hardin endorsed a freestanding building on October 15, 1992, and the trustees approved a site in 1993.
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UNC Housekeepers organize for pay and respect
UNC housekeepers formed the Housekeepers Association in 1991 and brought a class-action discrimination suit against the University over pay, advancement and treatment. Led by Marsha Tinnen and Barbara Prear, they signed a settlement with UNC on November 26, 1996, that brought raises, a career training program and monthly meetings with administrators.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1991 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Wisconsin, 3–1, in the national final.
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UNC's basketball team takes the court in Alexander Julian's argyle uniforms
At Dean Smith's request, the Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian redesigned the Tar Heel men's basketball uniforms, adding an argyle side panel that debuted in the 1991-92 season and became a symbol of the university.
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Herbert Aptheker returns to speak at UNC in Greenlaw Hall
Twenty-five years after he was kept off campus, Aptheker spoke to students and faculty in Greenlaw Hall in a visit arranged by anthropology professor Don Nonini.
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The William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education is dedicated
UNC dedicated its continuing education center, named for William and Ida Friday, on April 12, 1991. Friday described it as "the citizens' classroom."
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1991 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1991 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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Joe Hakan becomes chairman of the chamber of commerce
Joe Hakan became chairman of the chamber's board of directors and led it out of a budget deficit, cutting salaries and staff and hiring a lower-paid director.
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William F. Little serves as acting provost
Little served as acting provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs between the departure of J. Dennis O'Connor and the arrival of a new provost.
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Carvings of Prince's circus parade move to the Alumni Center
Carvings made from the circus parade illustrations in The Southern Part of Heaven, long displayed at the Carolina Inn, were moved in 1992 to the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.
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Daniel Pollitt retires from the UNC law faculty
Pollitt, by then a Kenan professor of law, retired from teaching in 1992 after more than 35 years at UNC. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, opposing the Speaker Ban and helping to integrate the university.
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Shelby Foote receives the Charles Frankel Prize
The National Endowment for the Humanities gave Shelby Foote the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, as novelist, historian and principal commentator of the PBS documentary The Civil War.
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Smithies lab develops the first cystic fibrosis animal model
Smithies's laboratory at UNC used his gene-targeting method to produce the first animal model of cystic fibrosis.
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UNC awards Shelby Foote an honorary Doctor of Letters
UNC-Chapel Hill conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters on Shelby Foote, a UNC student from 1935 to 1937, for his fiction and his three-volume narrative history of the Civil War.
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UNC renames its admissions building Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson
The university renamed the former Navy Hall and Monogram Club building on Country Club Road, home of the admissions office since 1972, as Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall. The Jacksons had retired from teaching in 1981.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1992 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Duke, 9–1, in the national final.
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Jeff MacNelly pledges $25,000 toward a UNC journalism professorship honoring Jim Shumaker
Jeff MacNelly pledged $25,000 to the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication toward the James H. Shumaker Term Professorship. Shumaker had edited the Chapel Hill Weekly when MacNelly drew for it as a student.
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The Black Cultural Center holds a reception for alumnus Randall Kenan
UNC's Black Cultural Center held a reception for Kenan, a 1985 graduate, on the publication of his story collection Let the Dead Bury Their Dead; the Bull's Head Bookshop held an autograph party for the book the same day.
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Orange County jury finds three former UNC officials discriminated against police officer Keith Edwards
A jury ruled that former UNC officials John DeVitto, Charles Mauer and Robert Sherman had discriminated by race and gender against Keith Edwards, an 18-year veteran of the UNC police, and ordered them to pay $116,000 in damages. Alan McSurely, her lawyer, won his first jury trial with the case.
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The Chapel Hill sound gains national attention
Spin's December 1992 feature "Robbing the Cradle," its title a play on the Cat's Cradle, looked at Polvo and other local bands as record scouts hunted for the next big thing after Seattle. By January 1993 the Daily Tar Heel counted about six publications calling Chapel Hill the next Seattle, and Details and Time followed that year.
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Shelby Foote becomes UNC's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence
Shelby Foote spent the fall 1993 semester at UNC as the university's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence.
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Southern Cultures publishes its first issue from UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South
John Shelton Reed and Harry L. Watson opened the first issue of the quarterly Southern Cultures, which they called the front porch of UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South.
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The George Watts Hill Alumni Center opens on Stadium Drive
The General Alumni Association dedicated its new Alumni Center on Stadium Drive in 1993, and the university named it for George Watts Hill, who had pledged a $3.5 million challenge grant when the building campaign began.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1993 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated George Mason, 6–0, in the national final.
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NAACP task force begins a study of UNC's employee grievance procedure
A task force chaired by Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP president James Brittian held its first meeting to evaluate UNC's grievance and appeals procedure and employee relations counseling, aiming to change state law for workers across the UNC system. Former UNC personnel director Jack Gunnells was its operations director.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 1993 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Michigan, 77–71, to win the national title.
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Jesse Jackson comes to Chapel Hill during the Black Cultural Center sit-in
Jesse Jackson came to Chapel Hill while students occupied South Building for a free-standing Black Cultural Center, met first with Chancellor Hardin and urged him to call a special trustees' meeting, which Hardin refused. Sixteen students and a Chapel Hill resident were arrested that day.
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UNC Trustees approve a freestanding Black Cultural Center on the Coker site
On July 23, 1993, the UNC Board of Trustees approved building a freestanding Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center on the Coker Woods site between Coker Hall and the Bell Tower. Supporters had wanted the Wilson-Dey site on the main quad, and student leaders accepted the Coker site that November.
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UNC and Chapel Hill celebrate their bicentennial
UNC marked 200 years since the laying of Old East's cornerstone with a Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, where President Bill Clinton spoke to about 45,000 people. The town dedicated Michael Brown's mural of the October 12, 1793, lot auction at the Franklin Street post office.
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UNC wins the Sears Directors' Cup
Carolina won the Sears Directors' Cup for its all-sports record under athletics director John Swofford, the only ACC program to win the award.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1994 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 5–0, in the national final. This completed nine consecutive NCAA titles (1986–1994).
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John Dee Holeman and Joe and Odell Thompson open UNC's bicentennial folk heritage series
Bluesman and buckdancer John Dee Holeman and the Mebane string band duo Joe and Odell Thompson opened From the Outer Banks to the Blue Ridge: A Celebration of North Carolina's Folk Heritage at 2 p.m. on March 23, 1994, in Person Hall. The free series was part of UNC's Bicentennial Observance.
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UNC women’s basketball wins the 1994 NCAA national championship
Charlotte Smith’s last-second three-pointer gave UNC a 60–59 victory over Louisiana Tech.
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UNC hires Jenny Levy to start its women's lacrosse program
Carolina added women's lacrosse as a varsity sport and in October 1994 named Levy, then an assistant coach at Georgetown, its first head coach. She is still the only head coach the program has had.
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WXYC makes the first internet radio simulcast
WXYC streamed its radio broadcast over the internet on November 7, 1994.
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Charles Kuralt receives the Charles Frankel Prize
The National Endowment for the Humanities gave Charles Kuralt the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, for chronicling American life for CBS News, above all in his On the Road reports.
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Elson Floyd serves as UNC's first executive vice chancellor
Chancellor Michael Hooker hired Floyd in 1995 for the newly created post of executive vice chancellor, overseeing auxiliary services, facilities, business and finance, human resources, information technology, student affairs and university advancement. He left in 1998 to become president of Western Michigan University.
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N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opens at UNC Hospitals
The N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opened in 1995 as a specialized hospital within the UNC Hospitals complex in Chapel Hill.
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Randall Kenan returns to UNC as a visiting professor
Kenan, who decided on a writing career in UNC English classes, came back to Chapel Hill in 1995 as a visiting professor, and read that February in the Second Sunday series at Wilson Library.
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William Ferris receives the Charles Frankel Prize
The National Endowment for the Humanities gave William R. Ferris the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, as director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and a scholar of the American South.
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Yonni Chapman founds the Freedom Legacy Project at UNC
While a UNC history graduate student, Chapman founded and directed the Freedom Legacy Project, a student group that documented the history of racial justice struggles at the university and publicly questioned the Silent Sam statue and the naming of Saunders Hall.
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Annie Dillard is UNC's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence
Dillard spent a week at UNC in the English department's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence program, meeting creative writing students and giving a free public reading in Memorial Hall on February 1. The Daily Tar Heel reported a full house.
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Michael Hooker is inaugurated as chancellor at Chapel Hill
Hooker, who took office on July 1, 1995, was inaugurated on University Day. A Hugh Morton photograph records university president C. D. Spangler at the ceremony in Chapel Hill.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1995 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1995 NCAA field hockey title against Maryland.
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UNC razes the Michie House, the last private home on campus, for parking
Demolition crews took down Sallie Markham Michie's house at South Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue three weeks after a judge ordered it sold to UNC by eminent domain. Michie had willed it to the DAR and the Magna Carta Dames on condition it never go to the University; the state paid the two groups $550,000.
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A chancellor's task force recommends sprinklers and alarms in every fraternity and sorority house
After the Phi Gamma Delta fire, the Chancellor's Committee on Greek Affairs Fire Safety Task Force reported that all Greek houses should have sprinkler systems and alarms.
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Allan Gurganus is a visiting scholar at UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities
Gurganus spent 1996 as a visiting fellow of UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities and presented at the institute's symposium Echoes of Home, Imitations of Return in Hill Hall that October.
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Black public works employees bring a discrimination charge against the Town of Chapel Hill
The Black Public Works Association, with the NAACP's help, filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging racial discrimination in promotions, pay and training in Chapel Hill's Public Works Department, where about 75 of some 110 employees were Black and none were managers. The EEOC assigned an investigator in the summer of 1996.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1996 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 1–0 in two overtimes, in the national final.
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Fire at the Phi Gamma Delta house kills several students
Early on the morning of May 12, 1996, commencement day, fire swept the Phi Gamma Delta house on West Cameron Avenue, across from the Carolina Inn, and killed five students; three more were hurt. The house had no sprinklers, and the deaths pushed the university and the Greek houses to take fire safety seriously.
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McDougle Elementary School opens on the shared McDougle campus
McDougle Elementary School, named like the middle school for Charles and Lucille McDougle, opened on August 20, 1996 and shares its campus with McDougle Middle School.
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Hurricane Fran fells old trees on UNC's north campus
Fran brought down several roughly 200-year-old trees around New West Hall and left North Campus and Cameron Avenue covered in fallen trees, while the Davie Poplar survived. University power came back within hours, and Sitterson Hall opened as a place for people to recharge batteries, get ice and water and shower.
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UNC suspends afternoon classes for a campuswide Hurricane Fran cleanup
Chancellor Michael Hooker suspended classes from noon on Wednesday so students, faculty and staff could clear storm debris. Nearly 1,000 students reported to the Old Well within the first hour, working with University forester Kirk Pelland's crews, and Coker Arboretum staff expected their cleanup to run into the winter.
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The Botanical Garden gives William Lanier Hunt its Flora Caroliniana Award
The North Carolina Botanical Garden presented Hunt with its Flora Caroliniana Award as founder of the Botanical Garden Foundation, land donor and supporter of the garden, the day before he died.
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UNC tears down the Scuttlebutt, the wartime Navy canteen
The Scuttlebutt snack bar at Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, built as a Pre-Flight School canteen, was razed after more than fifty years of feeding students.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1996 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1996 NCAA field hockey title against Princeton.
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UNC Housekeepers’ settlement is reached
UNC administrators and leaders of the UNC Housekeepers Association signed a mediated agreement on November 26, 1996, meant to end the housekeepers' 5 1/2-year-old discrimination suit. Housekeepers had approved it 212 to 1; it included back pay for about 340 workers, a career training program and regular meetings with administrators.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1997 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final.
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Reviewers deny the OWASA Jones Ferry Road water plant a place on the Study List
The Orange Water and Sewer Authority's Jones Ferry Road Water Treatment Plant was among five central region requests on July 10, 1997. Staff recommended denial because of modern alterations, and the committee accepted the staff recommendations without separate discussion of the plant.
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Charles Kuralt is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Kuralt died on July 4, 1997 and was buried on the UNC campus in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. About 1,600 people attended a memorial service in Memorial Hall, where Hugh Morton and William C. Friday spoke.
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William C. Friday receives the National Humanities Medal
President Clinton and Hillary Clinton presented Friday with one of the first National Humanities Medals. The NEH cited him as president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, which he led from 1956 to 1986, and executive director of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trusts.
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A bronze statue of James K. Polk is dedicated on University Day
A bronze statue by the Marshville sculptor Stephen H. Smith, showing Polk as a young man speaking to a crowd and standing on a carved outline of the United States, was dedicated on University Day 1997.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1997 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1997 NCAA field hockey title against Old Dominion.
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Former UNC police officer C. E. Swain sues the university
Alan McSurely filed suit for C. E. Swain, a fired UNC police officer, alleging discrimination and violation of his constitutional rights; Swain said he came under pressure after ticketing the daughter of trustee Billy Armfield. The two asked the Black Student Movement for support the next day.
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A Knapp Foundation gift funds an addition, renamed the Knapp-Sanders Building
The Knapp Foundation contributed to a large addition to the Institute of Government building, and the name was extended to honor John Lassiter Sanders, the Institute's second director.
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General Assembly creates the UNC Health Care System
Legislation in 1998 created the UNC Health Care System, bringing UNC Hospitals and the clinical work of the School of Medicine under one entity.
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The University Laundry is renamed for housekeeping leaders Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark
On January 28, 1998 the trustees voted to rename the 1920s University Laundry for Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark, who led campus housekeepers in the 1930s and 1940s. The building was rededicated on September 17, 1998.
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Elizabeth Spencer reads in Memorial Hall at the North Carolina Literary Festival
Spencer gave a program in Memorial Hall on the Saturday of the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South.
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State and university leaders welcome UNC President Molly Broad at a dinner in Chapel Hill
On the eve of her inauguration as the 15th president of the UNC system, hundreds of state and university leaders, including Gov. Jim Hunt and former presidents Bill Friday and C. D. Spangler, gathered at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center to welcome Molly Corbett Broad.
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Mike Fox is named UNC head baseball coach
Athletic director Dick Baddour hired Fox, a former Tar Heel second baseman, as the 24th head coach in UNC baseball history. He came from 15 seasons at N.C. Wesleyan College and took over before the 1999 season.
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Elson Floyd receives a C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award
Floyd, then executive vice chancellor, received UNC's Massey Award for service to the University, weeks before leaving for the presidency of Western Michigan University.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1999 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–0, in the national final.
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Willie Scroggs is UNC's point person for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games
As an athletics administrator Scroggs was the university's point person for the Special Olympics World Summer Games, part of which were held in Chapel Hill.
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Chancellor Michael Hooker dies in office
Hooker was chief administrative officer at Chapel Hill from July 1, 1995 until his death on June 29, 1999. He was found to have lymphoma in January 1999 and took medical leave from April, when William O. McCoy served as acting chancellor.
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UNC President Molly Broad names William McCoy to lead Chapel Hill after Chancellor Hooker's death
After Chancellor Michael Hooker died of cancer in June 1999, UNC system president Molly Broad appointed William O. McCoy, who had served as acting chancellor during Hooker's medical leave, to lead UNC-Chapel Hill until a permanent chancellor was chosen.
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The Carolina Inn is listed in the National Register
On August 6, 1999 the National Park Service listed the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Jacquelyn Dowd Hall receives the National Humanities Medal
President Clinton presented Hall with a National Humanities Medal as founder and director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program and a scholar of the New South.
- 2000s
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2000 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated UCLA, 2–1, in the national final.
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The Board of Governors elects James Moeser chancellor at the Carolina Inn
At a Board of Governors meeting in the Carolina Inn ballroom, UNC system president Molly Broad introduced University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor James Moeser, and the board unanimously elected him the ninth chancellor at Chapel Hill, ending an eight-month search.
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Jesse Jackson receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Bill Clinton presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesse Jackson at a White House ceremony.
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James Moeser serves as ninth chancellor at Chapel Hill
Moeser, a music scholar who had led the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, became chancellor on August 15, 2000. His years included the Carolina First campaign, which raised 2.38 billion dollars; he announced in September 2007 that he would step down on June 30, 2008.
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Doug Marlette teaches at UNC as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of journalism
Hillsborough cartoonist Doug Marlette served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, teaching courses on the editorial cartoon and on humor writing.
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Doug Marlette's novel The Bridge, set in a fictional Hillsborough, stirs the town's writers
Marlette's first novel, The Bridge, is set in the fictional town of Eno, modeled on Hillsborough, where he lived and worked. Some of Hillsborough's writers took offense at characters based on them, and the manager of the Bull's Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill cancelled a reading.
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North Carolina Children's and Women's Hospitals open
UNC Hospitals opened freestanding women's and children's hospitals in 2001. The Women's Hospital houses labor and delivery, operating rooms and ambulatory clinics, and the Children's Hospital holds a 58-bed newborn intensive care nursery.
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UNC awards Gladys Coates an honorary doctor of laws
At ninety-nine, Gladys Coates, who had worked beside her husband in building the Institute and spent decades researching the University's past, received an honorary LL.D. from the University.
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UNC's School of Law founds the Center for Civil Rights with Julius Chambers as its first director
The UNC School of Law established the Center for Civil Rights in Chapel Hill in 2001, with Julius Chambers as its first director, Dean Gene Nichol, and John Charles Boger as deputy director. The center worked on inequalities facing minority and low-income communities.
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Town Council approves UNC's main-campus Development Plan under OI-4 zoning
The Chapel Hill Town Council approved the university's Development Plan covering 582 acres of the main campus in the Office/Institutional-4 district, proposing 41 new buildings, 8 parking decks and new roads, about 5.9 million square feet in all, to carry out the 2001 Campus Master Plan.
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UNC men’s soccer wins the 2001 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Indiana to win the 2001 NCAA men’s soccer championship.
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Doug Marlette is inducted into the UNC Journalism Hall of Fame
UNC's journalism school inducted Doug Marlette, then living in Hillsborough, into its Journalism Hall of Fame.
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Harvey Beech receives the General Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Medal
The General Alumni Association awarded Beech its Distinguished Service Medal in 2002. The citation, read at the Annual Alumni Luncheon, called him the inspiration behind the Black Alumni Reunion and noted the scholarship endowment he set up at the university.
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Institute of Government names a Knapp Building courtyard for Gladys Coates
After Gladys Hall Coates died at 100 at her Chapel Hill home on September 25, 2002, the Institute of Government named a garden courtyard and veranda beside the former auditorium in the Knapp Building's east wing in her memory.
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William R. Ferris joins UNC as senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South
Folklorist William R. Ferris joined the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty in 2002 as senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, professor of history and adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore.
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Chapel Hill Transit becomes fare-free
Chapel Hill Transit stopped charging fares on January 2, 2002, and added 11 buses and new routes. Under the funding agreement, UNC paid about 40 percent of the cost and Chapel Hill and Carrboro split the rest by population.
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UNC public health students complete a community study of Fairview
After interviewing residents in 2001 and 2002, students in the UNC Department of Health Behavior and Health Education issued an action-oriented community diagnosis of Fairview. It is one of the few written histories of Hillsborough's northern Black neighborhoods.
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Gladys Coates dies at one hundred
Gladys Coates, partner in the founding of the Institute of Government and a student of the University's history, died at a hundred. After a service at the Chapel of the Cross she was buried beside Albert Coates in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, across the road from the School of Government.
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Elizabeth Spencer gives the Thomas Wolfe Prize lecture at UNC
Spencer received UNC's third Thomas Wolfe Prize, given by the English department to writers with distinguished bodies of work, and gave the free public Thomas Wolfe Lecture in the Hanes Art Center auditorium.
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Chancellor Moeser announces the Carolina Covenant
The Carolina Covenant promised children of low-income families a chance to graduate from UNC without debt, working 10 to 12 hours a week in a campus work-study job, with grants and scholarships meeting the rest of their need.
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Randall Kenan teaches creative writing on the UNC faculty
Kenan joined UNC's English and Comparative Literature faculty full time in 2003 and taught fiction, nonfiction and food writing until his death in August 2020 at his home in Hillsborough.
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Town forms the Horace Williams Citizens Committee to shape review of the tract
Chapel Hill formed the Horace Williams Citizens Committee in 2003 to advise on development proposals for the university's Horace Williams tract, and the Town Council adopted the committee's March 2004 final report as town policy.
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UNC Health Care expands Interpreter Services as Spanish-speaking patients increase
After a 2003 summary on the state of Hispanic health was presented to the UNC Health Care executive board, the system added Interpreter Services resources from 2003 to 2007. UNC Hospitals handled nearly 40,000 interpreter consults in 2005-2006.
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A tie vote keeps Person Hall off the Study List
UNC's campus preservation specialist Paul Kapp asked that Person Hall, already a contributing building in the Chapel Hill Historic District, be recognized on its own. Staff doubted how much of what was visible predated a 1977 renovation and urged the university to treat its old buildings as a district. On February 13, 2003 a motion to place the hall on the Study List split three to three, the chair voted no, and the committee deferred it; the Beta Theta Pi house was also deferred to await a possible Fraternity Court district.
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Roy Williams is named head coach of UNC men's basketball
Williams left Kansas a week after losing the NCAA championship game and was introduced in Chapel Hill as UNC's head coach, succeeding Matt Doherty.
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The Beta Theta Pi house joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house in Chapel Hill on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2003 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final.
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Charles E. Daye receives the Thomas Jefferson Award
Law professor Charles E. Daye won the Thomas Jefferson Award in 2004, the year after he co-authored a brief that helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve affirmative action in college and university admissions.
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The Henry W. Lewis classroom is dedicated in the Knapp-Sanders Building
The Institute of Government named a classroom for Lewis in its renovated Knapp-Sanders Building.
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UNC School of Medicine starts CAMPOS to train Spanish-speaking physicians
Marco Alemán and colleagues founded the Comprehensive Advanced Medical Program of Spanish in 2004 to prepare medical students to care for Spanish-speaking patients without relying on interpreters. Its first class graduated in 2008, and students do yearly service with Spanish-speaking communities.
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UNC dedicates the William E. Scroggs locker room at Kenan Stadium
Lacrosse alumni and the Educational Foundation paid to refurbish the men's lacrosse locker room at the old Kenan Field House, and it was dedicated in Scroggs's name before lacrosse alumni and fans.
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The Sonja Haynes Stone Center celebrates its grand opening
After more than a decade of organizing, the freestanding Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History opened in Coker Woods with a four-day celebration. A Friday candlelight procession from the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery preceded Saturday's dedication by Chancellor James Moeser before more than 500 guests.
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A Charlie Justice monument is dedicated at UNC's Kenan Football Center
A bronze sculpture of Justice in his number 22 uniform, 8 feet 6 inches tall, was dedicated at the west entrance of the Frank H. Kenan Football Center near the Sonja Haynes Stone Center. Private donations paid for it, and it was proposed by his teammate Joe Neikirk with Charlie Loudermilk and Hugh Morton.
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UNC retires the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award after Yonni Chapman's campaign
Chancellor James Moeser retired the Bell Award, given yearly since 1994 to a woman for outstanding contributions to the university, after graduate student Yonni Chapman led a campaign against it over Spencer's white supremacist and sexist views.
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Andy Griffith gives his career memorabilia to Wilson Library
Griffith donated his collection of career memorabilia, including a guitar, to the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library, the same year he was among the first three recipients of the Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Baity Hill graduate and family housing opens on former Baity land
UNC completed the Baity Hill housing complex in 2005 on land once owned by Herman G. and Elizabeth Chesley Baity, whose family home stands on the grounds. It replaced Odum Village.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2005 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Illinois, 75–70, to win the national title.
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The Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House is listed in the National Register
On April 20, 2005 the National Park Service listed the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
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UNC Libraries opens the exhibit Slavery and the Making of the University
University archivists mounted an exhibit on the enslaved and free Black people who built and served the early university, including cabinetmaker Thomas Day and poet George Moses Horton.
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The Unsung Founders Memorial is dedicated in McCorkle Place
The Class of 2002's gift, a black granite table held up by 300 bronze figures by artist Do-Ho Suh, honors the people of color, bond and free, who helped build the university.
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Andy Griffith receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Griffith, one of fourteen recipients that year, in the East Room of the White House.
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OWASA gives Daniel Okun a lifetime achievement award
The Orange Water and Sewer Authority gave Okun a lifetime achievement award in 2006; the school credits him with leading the campaign to build the Cane Creek Dam and Reservoir in the 1980s.
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The Lambeth Lectureship in public policy is established at UNC
Joel L. Fleishman established the Lambeth Lectureship at Chapel Hill in 2006 with an anonymous gift, honoring Lambeth's public policy work.
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UNC hosts its first NCAA baseball regional at Boshamer Stadium since
Mike Fox's Tar Heels swept three games at the regional in Chapel Hill, then won the super regional at Alabama and went on to finish second at the College World Series.
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UNC's Latino Migration Project begins the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces oral history initiative
The Latino Migration Project at UNC-Chapel Hill began New Roots/Nuevas Raíces to record stories of Latino migration, settlement and integration in North Carolina, with interviews archived through the Southern Oral History Program and University Libraries. The project has collected over 200 interviews, adding about 20 a year.
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Hodding Carter III joins UNC as University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy
Carter, a former Mississippi newspaper editor, State Department spokesman and Knight Foundation president, joined the UNC faculty in January 2006. He later chaired the UNC Press Development Council.
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UNC's Campus Master Plan update is approved
The update to the 2001 Campus Master Plan found about half of the 2001 plan's sites under construction or in design, with over six million square feet of new buildings under way, and put remaining main-campus capacity at about 4.5 million square feet; it planned residence halls to replace Odum Village on South Campus.
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UNC tears down West House for the Arts Common
The university demolished West House after more than two years of effort by the Save the West House Coalition to keep or move it. The trustees had voted for demolition in September 2004, and the Council of State gave final approval in July 2006.
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UNC announces John Bunting will not return as football coach
Athletic director Dick Baddour told Bunting he would be relieved at the end of his sixth season, and the university announced he would not coach the Tar Heels in 2007. He coached the last five games.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2006 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final.
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Hannah Gill founds the Latino Migration Project at UNC
Gill started the Latino Migration Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to improve public understanding of Latin American migration to North Carolina. The project describes itself as an initiative of INSITE Latin America and the Caribbean.
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St. Joseph CME Church and UNC begin the Northside oral history partnership
Rev. Troy Harrison and UNC professor Della Pollock began collecting oral histories in Northside, the project that grew into the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.
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St. Paul AME Church bought land on Rogers Road for a new church campus
The Chapel Hill congregation bought more than 22 acres for a worship complex with a banquet hall, wellness center, daycare, senior and affordable housing, athletic fields and a cemetery. The land, at Rogers Road and Purefoy Drive, became the site of the planned St. Paul Village.
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The Sancars start Carolina Turk Evi
Aziz and Gwen Sancar set up the nonprofit Carolina Turk Evi to host Turkish students and scholars at UNC and promote understanding between Turks and Americans.
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UNC closes the original Boshamer Stadium with a super regional win
The Tar Heels beat South Carolina in an NCAA super regional at Boshamer Stadium, the last postseason games in the 1972 stadium, and advanced to the College World Series for the second straight year.
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UNC holds the first Chuck Stone workshop for high school students
The journalism school's Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media held its first workshop for rising high school seniors in 2007, honoring the professor who had retired two years earlier.
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UNC trustees approve the Carolina North plan
The Board of Trustees approved a plan for Carolina North on the Horace Williams tract, later submitted to the town with the 2009 rezoning application; the trustees adopted Carolina North design guidelines on November 19, 2008.
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Oliver Smithies wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2007 prize to Smithies, Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans for discovering principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells. Smithies was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2007 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2007 NCAA field hockey title against Penn State.
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Lee Smith, Randall Kenan and Allan Gurganus gather with other authors at Brick Alley Books
Kenan, Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus shared stories at a gathering of authors at Brick Alley Books in Hillsborough. The Daily Tar Heel used the evening to report on the town as a home for writers, quoting Smith, Gurganus, Kenan, poet laureate Mike Troy and photographer Elizabeth Matheson.
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Daniel Okun dies in Chapel Hill
Okun, Kenan Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, died in Chapel Hill of complications of leukemia at age 90.
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Three alumni recreate the walk attributed to Hinton James and finish at the Old Well
Nick Becketti, Bryan Jones and Whitney Reeds set out from the coast near Wilmington in the summer of 2008 to repeat the roughly 170-mile walk attributed to Hinton James. The university says the two-week trip ended at the Old Well in Chapel Hill.
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UNC opens a second computer science building named for Brooks
UNC built a second computer science building beside Sitterson Hall and named it for Brooks, who was still working in the department; he kept his office in Sitterson Hall.
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UNC opens the Center for Latino Health for Spanish-speaking patients
The UNC Center for Latino Health (CELAH) began in 2008 in the School of Medicine and UNC Health Care, offering specialty and primary care in Spanish, same-day access and health education. It served more than 15,000 patients in its first ten years.
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Valerie Foushee finishes her UNC degree
Foushee had left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after two years and returned later to finish, graduating in 2008 with a degree in political science and African and Afro-American studies. She was by then an Orange County commissioner.
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Eve Carson, UNC’s Student Body President, is killed
Eve Marie Carson, 22, UNC's student body president and a Morehead-Cain Scholar from Athens, Georgia, was abducted from her Chapel Hill home early on March 5, 2008, robbed and shot on Hillcrest Road near campus. Demario Atwater pleaded guilty in 2010, and a Hillsborough jury convicted Laurence Lovette on December 20, 2011.
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Thousands gather on Polk Place to remember Eve Carson
On the day student body president Eve Carson was killed, thousands gathered on UNC's Polk Place for a moment of silence.
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Holden Thorp serves as tenth chancellor at Chapel Hill
Thorp, a UNC alumnus and chemist, took office on July 1, 2008 and spent his first day with student leaders at the Campus Y. He left in 2013 to become provost at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Allan Gurganus speaks at Holden Thorp's installation as chancellor
At the University Day ceremony on Polk Place installing Holden Thorp as UNC's tenth chancellor, Gurganus, who had known Thorp since childhood, spoke before Thorp's address and hailed a North Carolinian as chancellor.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2008 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final.
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North Carolina Cancer Hospital opens
The North Carolina Cancer Hospital opened as the clinical home of UNC Lineberger.
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The first Eve Marie Carson Scholar is announced
Students, friends and family turned Carson's plan for a student-run scholarship into the Eve Marie Carson Scholarship. The first scholar, a junior, received funding for a summer experience and aid toward senior-year tuition.
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Rebuilt Boshamer Stadium opens on Ridge Road
UNC opened its $26 million rebuilt baseball stadium, on the footprint of the old Boshamer, with a home opener against VMI before about 2,800 fans. Work began in October 2007, and the field was named Bryson Field.
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Several thousand gather in the Pit on the anniversary of Eve Carson's death
Students, faculty and staff met in the Pit, where friends spoke about Carson, Chancellor Holden Thorp recalled her service, the Clef Hangers sang and the Bell Tower tolled Hark the Sound.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Michigan State, 89–72, to win the national title.
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UNC's library exhibited Rogers Road family histories drawn from Emily Eidenier Pearce's book
The exhibit We're All Family Here: Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill introduced families who had shaped the area from the 1700s on. It was inspired by Pearce's 2009 history Rogers Road, which RENA presents as part of its History Project.
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Town Council approves the Carolina North development agreement and U-1 zoning
After ten joint work sessions with trustees and hearings on May 11, June 15 and June 22, the Town Council approved a 20-year development agreement for Carolina North and rezoned the in-town portion of the tract to University-1, authorizing about 3 million square feet on 133 acres.
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N.C. Cancer Hospital is dedicated
The seven-story, 315,000-square-foot N.C. Cancer Hospital, built with a 180 million dollar authorization from the General Assembly, was dedicated in September 2009. It tripled the space available for treating cancer patients at UNC.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2009 NCAA field hockey title against Maryland.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Stanford, 1–0, in the national final.
- 2010s
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UNC Hospitals employs about 7,000 people
Town figures show UNC Hospitals employed 6,680 full-time and 359 part-time staff in 2010, and the UNC Health Care System, with 7,964 employees, was Orange County's second-largest public employer after the university.
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UNC discloses possible academic misconduct in its football program
An NCAA and university inquiry into agent benefits to football players, set off by a player's tweet on May 31, 2010, turned up possible academic misconduct by a tutor, which Thorp announced at a press conference. Later investigation found grade changes and classes that did not meet in the African and Afro-American studies department.
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UNC starts the Building Integrated Communities program
The Latino Migration Project began Building Integrated Communities, which Gill co-founded, to help North Carolina local governments plan with immigrant and refugee residents. Each partner community works with the program for about two years.
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Ralph Frasier speaks at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center
Ralph Frasier, one of UNC's first three Black undergraduates, gave a free public talk in the Hitchcock Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. He had left the university in 1958 without a degree.
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The Eve Marie Carson Garden is dedicated on Polk Place
UNC dedicated a garden behind the Campus Y in memory of Eve Carson and of all students who die before they graduate. A stone slab carries a quotation from her, and private gifts paid for it.
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Daniel H. Pollitt dies in Chapel Hill
Pollitt died in Chapel Hill on March 5, 2010. His honors included the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the Thomas Jefferson Award and the Order of the Golden Fleece.
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UNC honors its first three Black undergraduates, 55 years on
John Lewis Brandon and LeRoy and Ralph Frasier returned to UNC for a weekend of tributes marking 55 years since they enrolled, including a Friday dinner at which the Rev. William Barber called them heroes.
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Karen Shelton receives UNC's C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award
The university gave Shelton its C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award for her long service to Carolina. She had been inducted into the campus honor society the Order of the Golden Fleece in March 2002.
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UNC graduates wear Alexander Julian's true-blue recycled gowns
UNC's new commencement gowns, designed by Alexander Julian in true Carolina blue with white piping and made from recycled plastic bottles in North and South Carolina mills, were first worn at the May 2011 Commencement.
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Rebecca Clark's name is added to the Peace and Justice Plaza plaque
Clark, Yonni Chapman, the Rev. Charles M. Jones and Dan Pollitt were honored after their deaths for their work for civil rights, social justice and equality in Chapel Hill. Their names were added to the plaque at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the historic post office on Franklin Street.
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Demonstrators re-read Julian Carr's 1913 dedication speech at the monument and unveil a mock plaque
A campus demonstration read Carr's dedication-day speech aloud at the statue and unveiled a new plaque of its own giving the monument's history. The Daily Tar Heel reported a further Real Silent Sam movement protest on the statue's history later that month.
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Speaker Ban marker dedicated at the McCorkle Place wall
On University Day a bronze marker naming the twelve student plaintiffs was dedicated at the wall where Wilkinson and Aptheker spoke, a gift of Anne Dickson Fogleman and Robert Dickson.
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UNC men’s soccer wins the 2011 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Charlotte to win the 2011 NCAA men’s soccer championship.
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UNC confers an honorary Doctor of Laws on Thomas W. Lambeth
The university gave Lambeth an honorary degree for public service and philanthropy, citing his two years as chair of its Board of Trustees.
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Chapel Hill's comprehensive plan describes the town as a university and health care town
The Chapel Hill 2020 data summary opens with a chapter titled Chapel Hill: A University and Health Care Town, names the UNC Health Care System among the town's three largest employers, and describes its expansion beyond the main campus toward NC 54, the 15-501 corridor and a new UNC Hospitals site in Hillsborough.
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Chancellor Thorp announces his resignation
After two years of scandals in the football program and the African and Afro-American studies department, and a fundraiser's resignation over personal trips, Thorp announced he would resign. Students and faculty held a rally asking him to stay.
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William C. Friday dies at his Chapel Hill home
Friday, president of the University of North Carolina from 1956 to 1986 and a longtime Chapel Hill resident, died in his sleep at home on October 12, 2012, at 92.
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 1, 2026.
