1875, September 15 - The University Reopens with a College of Literature
Although the curriculum for first- and second-year students engaged in essentially the same course of study, juniors and seniors now could study an array of subject matters to fulfill requirements for one of three undergraduate degrees: a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Science, or a Bachelor of Philosophy. The plan owed much to Kemp P. Battle (1831-1919), who had devised a similar structure as early as 1867. The antebellum grading system (very good, good, tolerable, bad, very bad) was replaced by numbers 1 through 6, reflecting the percentage of correct responses on end-of-course examinations.
These changes were in part in response to new cultural demands for a different type of educated professional. As Lindemann points out, “The post-war South would need fewer ministers and politicians and a great many more professionals with backgrounds in the sciences. The regular progression of students through a lock-step curriculum had lost favor together with the notion that a college education was the privilege of the influential, monied class.” With a university education no longer seen as only the purview of wealthy elites becoming religious and political leaders, the ideas of who could be a student were changing. During the Reconstruction, debate arose surrounding the education of women and people of color. Although the Executive Committee of the Trustees had voted for co-education in 1869, the Board of Education refused to admit female students, and while motions were made for the creation of a college for Black Americans as a branch of the University, no proposals were made for integrating UNC, and the motions for the creation of a Black American college were never taken into effect. The notion of who could be a student was changing in some ways, but UNC would still only educate white men.
Prior to the Civil War, it was illegal to teach an enslaved person to read, but the new North Carolina Constitution of 1868 guaranteed free public school education to all children. However, this did not result in integrated schools, but rather for the creation of schools for Black students, who previously could not legally obtain any education. Wilson Caldwell (1841-1898), became the principal of two public schools for Black children in Chapel Hill and Elizabeth City. The system of segregated and unequal schools would shape the educational system in North Carolina. Caldwell was born with “slave” status under the enslavement of President David L. Swain (1801-1868) and performed enslaved labor for the University as a “University servant,” a term used for both Black Americans with ‘free’ status and enslaved persons whose time was hired from their enslavers by the university. Caldwell was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
SOURCES
Battle, Kemp P. History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II: From 1868 to 1912. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1912. 71-72. Rpt. in Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/battle2/battle2.html.
Battle, Kemp P. History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II: From 1868 to 1912. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1912. 8. Rpt. in Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/battle2/battle2.html.
Battle, Kemp P. History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II: From 1868 to 1912. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1912. 86-87. Rpt. in Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/battle2/battle2.html.
Lindemann, Erika. “Aftermath of the Civil War.” True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina. 2005. Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://docsouth.unc.edu/true/chapter/chp06-02/chp06-02.html.
MacMillan, Dougald. English at Chapel Hill: 1795-1969. Department of English, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970. 8-9. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001260393&view=1up&seq=7.