Storyline · 1989–1993
UNC trustees rejected the design for a new WUNC radio building in 1989, and the station's fund drive fell short in 1991. In 1993 the Board of Governors approved funding for a smaller station on Mason Farm Road near the Friday Center, and the trustees approved its design.
WUNC radio, crowded into Swain Hall and the Smith Building, began raising money for a new station in its 1987 capital campaign. On September 1, 1989 the Business and Finance Committee of the UNC trustees turned down the proposed design for a building on N.C. 54 beside the Friday Continuing Education Center as unattractive and out of keeping with University buildings; trustees chairman Earl Phillips said the board would no longer be a rubber stamp. The station had raised $1.25 million of the $2.5 million cost. In October 1990 general manager Bill Davis said a Buy a Brick appeal had brought in $500,000 toward a building on a lot the University gave on Laurel Hill Parkway, to replace flood-prone quarters in Swain Hall's basement. By March 1991 the drive had failed at $1.2 million, after about $52,000 had gone into building plans, and the station told contributors the plans were halted.
On March 12, 1993 the Board of Governors approved funding for a station building of more than $1.3 million on Mason Farm Road near the Friday Center, sending the project on to the General Assembly; the station had raised more than $850,000 privately and had a University loan guarantee for the rest. On June 25 the trustees approved the design of an 8,000-square-foot station on the Mason Farm property beside the Friday Center.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
George Curt Scheibner analyzes the audience for public radio by program preference, working from the 1986 WUNC listen survey. Topics include public radio and radio audiences in Chapel Hill, the rating of radio programs and college radio stations in the town. Dated 1988, 102 leaves with seven preliminary pages and a bibliography on the last two.
Interim report for 1977 to 1978 from a select committee of the North Carolina General Assembly on what the University of North Carolina television network needed to extend and improve its broadcast reach, following recommendations from the university's General Administration. Printed in Raleigh in 1978.
A 1978 planning document in which the General Administration of the University of North Carolina set out what the university television network would need to extend and improve its broadcast reach. Fifteen pages, published by the university. Topics include educational television stations at Chapel Hill and television transmitters in North Carolina, which places the report with the university's educational broadcasting.
George E. Bair's 1977 planning paper on public radio for North Carolina, including WUNC, the university's public radio station in Chapel Hill. Issued by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 20 pages.
Thomas A. Bowers's history of a century of journalism and mass communication teaching at the University of North Carolina, published by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2009. It runs 282 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Robert E. Seymour's columns for the Chapel Hill News, gathered into a 192-page book by Chapel Hill Press in 2003. The short pieces offer anecdotes and reflections on Chapel Hill history, local manners and customs, and North Carolina life. Seymour (1925 to 2020) was the longtime pastor of Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church.
Anniversary booklet for the first twenty-five years of WCHL, the Chapel Hill radio station at 1360 on the AM dial, published in 1978. Topics include radio broadcasting and Chapel Hill history, with advertisements included. 20 unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits.
Anniversary booklet marking fifty years of WCHL 1360, the Chapel Hill radio station, with profiles of fifty people from Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Published in 2003, 36 pages with portraits. Contributors include Roland Giduz, Jim Heavner, Jonathan Howes, Neil Offen and Rosemary Waldorf.
Thomas A. Bowers gave this talk on the beginnings of journalism teaching at the University of North Carolina on October 15, 2009 in Wilson Library, part of the Gladys Hall Coates university history lecture series. It was printed the same year.
Richard Hunter Simpson filmed this seven minute farewell to Howell Hall in 1999. The film concerns the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, its buildings and its history, and the teaching of journalism in Chapel Hill. One videocassette, color with black and white sequences.
Centennial edition of the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina student newspaper, produced at Chapel Hill in 1993 to mark one hundred years of publication. Jen Pilla is named as centennial edition editor. Topics include the paper's history along with college student newspapers and periodicals in Chapel Hill, which makes the issue a source for the paper's own record.
An illustrated volume, with portraits, published by Village Sports in 1993 to mark forty years of WCHL, Chapel Hill's radio station at 1360 on the dial. Its writers were Jim Heavner, Roland Giduz, Jim Shumaker, Zora Rashkis, Dan Dunlop, George McCall, Lee Pace, Beth Tatum and Larry Stone.
A television news report of three minutes and fifty six seconds by Kenley Jones, broadcast on NBC Nightly News in 1975, on the spelling and grammar test journalism students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to pass for the major. John Adams, a former dean of the journalism school, is interviewed.
Stuart Willis traces the history of the North Carolina University Magazine, the student periodical published at Chapel Hill since 1844. His article was detached from the magazine itself in 1914 and printed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Societies, which ran it.
Holland Thompson's history of the North Carolina University Magazine at fifty years, written while he was a student of the class of 1895. It ran in the magazine for March and April 1894 and was issued separately at Chapel Hill by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
Leaflet on the southern broadcast media history initiative of the Southern Historical and Folklife Collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed in 1995. The project concerned the history of broadcasting in the Southern states and the business records that document it. Five pages on one folded sheet with illustrations.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “A new building for WUNC, 1989–1993.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/wunc-building-storyline-1989/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
