Graduate Students United formed in 1989, started mainly by history graduate students, to press for better pay, benefits and status for graduate employees. On September 18 the group, then about 90 graduate students, held a press conference and rally in the Pit demanding a $4,000-a-semester minimum for teaching and research assistants, in-state tuition, child care and health insurance, and reported that UNC paid less than all but one of ten peer universities. Provost Dennis O'Connor spoke in support and afterward agreed to a joint committee of graduate students and administrators, and Faculty Council chairman Harry Gooder pledged faculty support.
On June 27, 1990 about 50 members carried signs at a press conference at the Old Well against a proposed $1.3 million cut from the College of Arts and Sciences, which the group said could cost up to 150 teaching assistants their jobs. O'Connor told the gathering a 3 percent cut was certain and he expected more. On March 4, 1991, as departments cut graduate students' pay by 20 to 70 percent, an emergency meeting in Hamilton Hall passed a resolution, to be sent to the provost, that any further cuts would irreparably damage UNC's graduate programs. By 1991 the group had 120 dues-paying members and said it was not a union and did not bargain collectively.
In 1992 the group pressed for health insurance. On February 17 about 25 graduate students went to South Building and gave Interim Provost William Little a petition with 1,041 signatures from graduate students and faculty asking Chancellor Paul Hardin to back University-paid insurance, about $582 a year each, for 2,200 to 2,400 graduate student employees; the group asked for an answer by February 28. On February 21 the Faculty Council, on a report from its Faculty Welfare Committee, voted unanimously to urge Hardin to take all steps needed to provide it, and the group said one graduate student in three had no insurance. Hardin said he supported the idea but did not know where the money would come from. At a rally on the South Building steps on March 23 he told the crowd that the insurance and the housekeepers' pay were among his highest priorities, but said the University had done all it could until it had the money.
By March 9 the group had filed a student-court suit, as the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association had, to remove Student Congress restrictions barring it from using student fees to advocate or oppose legislation and requiring copies of its publications for review. Newsletter editor Joel Sipress said the group existed to work for better pay, benefits and conditions for graduate student employees and had to comment on political issues. In May the chief justice of the Student Supreme Court issued restraining orders keeping the Summer Congress from enforcing budget riders that required the two groups to submit material to Congress three days before publication, until the full court could rule in the fall.
Further reading
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.
Background on UNC & Campus Life · the most widely held histories of the theme this storyline is filed under; they may not discuss it
Carolina Basketball: A Century of Excellence
Lucas, Adam · 2010 · University of North Carolina Press
Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.
Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem
Jackson, Rick · 2023
Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.
The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road
Moore, Johnny; Chansky, Art · 2014 · Triumph Books
The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.
Miss Mary's Money
Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.
H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.
The Chronicles of the Bicentennial Observance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tepper, Steven J. · 1998
Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.
Game Changers
Chansky, Art · 2016
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
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William Friday
Link, William A. · 1995
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.
Light on the Hill
Snider, William D. · 1992
William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.
Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).
Chapel Hill in Plain Sight
Athas, Daphne · 2010 · Eno Publishers
Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.
What it means to be a Tar Heel: Roy Williams and North Carolina's greatest players
Fowler, Scott · 2010 · Triumph Books
Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.
The Campus of the First State University
Henderson, Archibald · 1949
Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1949), South Atlantic Quarterly (1950).
The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips
Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949
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).
