Caldwell Hall

Dedicated in 1912, Caldwell was built to house the UNC School of Medicine. It is named for Joseph Caldwell, the university's first president. Designed as a state-of-the-art medical facility, it included laboratories and classrooms. In the basement it also contained pens for animals, including do...

Southern Historical Collection

In the early twentieth century, led by faculty and students in history and social sciences, UNC began to emerge as a center for research on the American South. To support and encourage this work, history professor Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac Hamilton created the Southern Historical Collection in 1930...

Invisible University of North

In the fall of 1970 graduate student Nyle Frank started the Invisible University of North Carolina. The (very) informal "invisible university" offered alternative classes in the style of 1960s teach-ins. Anyone interested could sign up to take a class, or to teach one. The first course, taug...

Slavery

The early history of the university is inseparable from the history of slavery in the United States. Many of the early faculty and most of the members of the UNC Board of Trustees profited directly from enslaved labor. Enslaved people helped build the first buildings and were present all over campus...