Storyline · 1989–1992
Frank Brown resigned as dean of UNC's School of Education at the end of 1989, and in August 1990 the Board of Governors named Donald J. Stedman to succeed him. The school gained a Center for Educational Leadership in 1991, and its faculty agreed to teach more classes as it lost four faculty positions. In 1992 it stopped admitting new students to its high school social studies program.
On December 18, 1989 Frank Brown, dean of UNC's School of Education since 1983, submitted his resignation, effective June 30, 1990, to take up a two-year Carnegie Corporation research grant. Provost Dennis O'Connor noted that the school had had five deans and interim deans in the ten years before Brown. By February 9, 1990 Chancellor Paul Hardin had formed a search committee led by dean emeritus Edward Holley, with a list of three finalists due June 30. On August 10 the UNC Board of Governors appointed Donald J. Stedman, associate vice president for academic affairs of the UNC system and a professor of education, dean from September 1.
On February 8, 1991 the Board of Governors approved a Center for Educational Leadership to coordinate the school's research, training and public school outreach, bringing four programs, among them the National Center for the Paideia Program and the Triangle J New Hope Model Elementary School, under one umbrella. In March the trustees appointed Howard Maniloff, Vance County schools superintendent and co-author of the 1985 Basic Education Program for North Carolina's public schools, associate professor from July 1. By May 23, facing four lost faculty positions and an expected loss of 11 class sections, the faculty unanimously approved a two-year plan to raise their workload by a third, give at least eight days a year of service to public schools and seek outside grants to free about $250,000 in state salary. By March 25, 1992 Stedman had said the school would stop offering the undergraduate degree in teaching high school social studies, citing too few faculty members and a poor job market in which about 30 percent of the program's graduates found no teaching jobs. The halt applied to students who had not yet declared the major, among them N.C. Teaching Fellows planning on social studies, some of whom said they might give up their scholarships.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).
Daniel W. Barefoot arranges first-hand recollections of the University of North Carolina by decade, from the 'infant university' of the 1790s through the Civil War years when promise turned to despair, the rebuilding of the 1870s, the 'frosh' life of the 1880s, wartime fame in the 1940s, the controversies of the 1960s and the bicentennial of the 1990s. Thomas Wolfe's student years appear among the voices. Published by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem in 2008, 257 pages.
Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.
Sarah Watson Emery's 1963 book on the University of North Carolina, concerned with communism on the Chapel Hill campus and with academic freedom in 1960 and 1961. Published by Prospect House in Dallas, 240 pages with illustrations.
Robert Watson Winston's biography of Henry Horace Williams (1858-1940), who taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina for half a century, subtitled gadfly of Chapel Hill. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1942, 309 pages with frontispiece and portraits; this copy is autographed. Topics include educators in Chapel Hill and the university's history.
Reviewed in Social Forces (1943).
Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.
William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.
Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).
Maurice M. Bursey's biography of Francis Preston Venable (1856 to 1934), chemist and president of the University of North Carolina, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1989. It also covers the history of the university's chemistry department. Illustrated, 111 pages, with bibliographies.
Reviewed in Isis (1992).
Hope Summerell Chamberlain's life and letters of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825 to 1908), published in 1926, which doubles as a picture of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century. It runs 325 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s history of how the University of North Carolina took shape under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham (1876 to 1918) and Harry Woodburn Chase (1883 to 1955), published by the University Library in 2018. The 528-page account covers campus history in the early twentieth century and includes portraits.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2020).
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “UNC’s School of Education after Frank Brown, 1989–1992.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/education-school-storyline-1989/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
