Everything about University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill totally explained
}}
The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) is a
public,
coeducational,
research university located in
Chapel Hill,
North Carolina,
United States. The campus is the oldest in, and
flagship of, the
University of North Carolina system. The first public university in the United States to admit students, UNC is one of the original eight schools known as a
Public Ivy.
Academically, undergraduates receive a
liberal arts education with an opportunity to specialize within the professional schools of the university later in their studies. In both teaching and researching, UNC has been highly ranked by publications such as
BusinessWeek and
U.S. News & World Report. Along with
Duke University in
Durham and
North Carolina State University in
Raleigh, the university forms one of the corners of the
Research Triangle.
UNC has a strong history in athletics, notably in women's
soccer and men's
basketball. The
North Carolina Tar Heels share rivalries with other
Tobacco Road schools and have provided many
Olympians to
United States teams. The student newspaper
The Daily Tar Heel has won national awards for collegiate media, while the student radio station
WXYC provided the world's first internet radio broadcast.
Usage of the school's colors of
Carolina blue and
white dates back to the twin
Dialectic and Philanthropic literary societies, formed in 1795. The university also has a tradition of student self-governance with an
honor code. UNC's mascot is a live
ram named
Rameses.
History
Chartered by the
North Carolina General Assembly on
December 11,
1789, the university began instruction of undergraduates in 1795. UNC is the oldest public university in the nation and the only one to award degrees in the eighteenth century.
Its cornerstone was laid on
October 12,
1793, near an abandoned
Anglican chapel, chosen due to its central location within the state.
During the
Civil War, the university was among the few in the
Confederacy that managed to stay open. Soon afterward, it was forced to close during
Reconstruction from 1871 until 1875.
In 1932, UNC became one of the three original campuses in the Consolidated University of North Carolina. In 1963, the consolidated university was made fully
coeducational. As a result, the Women's College of the University of North Carolina was renamed the "
University of North Carolina at Greensboro," and the University of North Carolina became the "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill." Predating the other two schools by 98 years, UNC became the
de facto flagship university of the new statewide system.
During the 1960s, the campus was the location of significant political protest, first about local
racial segregation of hotels and restaurants, and then opposition to the Speaker Ban Law prohibiting speeches by
Communists on state campuses in North Carolina.
From the late 1990s onward, UNC expanded rapidly not only in terms of student population, but also in facilities funded by in part by the "Carolina First" campaign and an
endowment that increased fourfold in just ten years. In 2007, a full professor received a
Nobel Prize for the first time when
Oliver Smithies was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in
genetics.
Notable
leaders of the university include the 26th
Governor of North Carolina,
David Lowry Swain and
Edwin Anderson Alderman, who was also president of
Tulane University and the
University of Virginia. Current chancellor
James Moeser will be succeeded by
Holden Thorp in the summer of 2008.
Campus
UNC’s sprawling and landscaped campus is dominated by its two central
quads. One of the quads is named Polk Place, after President
James K. Polk, a native of
North Carolina and an alumnus of the university. Students gather in a sunken brick courtyard known as the Pit, often engaging in debate with the
Pit Preacher. The Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, located in the heart of campus, tolls the hour. In 1999, UNC was one of sixteen recipients of the
American Society of Landscape Architects Medallion Awards and was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book
The Campus as a Work of Art.
The university is informally divided into three campuses.
North campus includes the two quads along with the Pit, Frank Porter Graham Student Union, Student Stores, and the Davis, House, and Wilson libraries. Almost all classrooms are located in north campus along with the majority of undergraduate residence halls.
Middle campus includes Fetzer and Woollen Gymnasiums along with the Student Recreation Center,
Kenan Memorial Stadium, Irwin Belk outdoor track,
Eddie Smith Field House and indoor track,
Boshamer baseball field,
Carmichael Auditorium sports arena, Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, School of Government,
School of Law,
UNC Health Care, George Watts Hill Alumni Center, Ram's Head complex with a dining hall, parking garage, grocery store, and gymnasium, and residence halls.
Old Well and McCorkle Place
The most enduring symbol of the university is the
Old Well, a small neoclassical
rotunda based on the Temple of Love in the Garden of
Versailles, in the same location as the original well that provided water for the school. The well stands at the south end of McCorkle Place, the northern quad, between two of the campus's oldest buildings,
Old East and Old West. Also in McCorkle Place is the
Davie Poplar tree under which the university's founder,
William Davie, supposedly selected the location for the university in 1792. Another university landmark is
Silent Sam, a statue commemorating the soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the
Confederacy. The statue is controversial as some claim that the monument reminds them of racism and slavery. Others think that Silent Sam is simply a piece of the rich heritage of the
South.
Academics
Curriculum
UNC offers 71
bachelor's, 107
master's and 74
doctoral degree programs. The university enrolls more than 27,000 students from all 100 North Carolina counties, the other 49 states, and 47 other countries. State law requires that the percentage of students from North Carolina in each
freshman class meets or exceeds 82%.
At the undergraduate level, students spend their first two years at UNC working to fulfill "perspective" requirements. English, social science, history, foreign language, mathematics, and natural science courses are required of all students, ensuring that they receive a broad
liberal arts education. The university also offers a wide range of first year seminars for incoming freshmen. After their
sophomore year, students move on to the College of Arts and Sciences, or choose other degree programs within medicine, business, pharmacy, information and library science, public health, or journalism and mass communication.
Libraries
UNC's library system, which is comprised of a number of individual libraries housed throughout its campus, holds more than 5.8 million volumes in total. The library has an extensive Southern and rare book collection, housed in Wilson Library. The university is home to
ibiblio, the third oldest website in the world and one of the world's largest collections of freely available information including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies.
The Davis Library, situated near the Pit, is the main library. The R.B. House Undergraduate Library, also popularly frequented, is located in the same general area. Wilson Library, which was the university's main library prior to the construction of Davis, now houses largely special collections, rare books, and temporary exhibits.
Reputation and rankings
The university was named a
Public Ivy by Richard Moll in his 1985 book
The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, and in later guides by Howard and Matthew Greene. Many of UNC's professional schools have achieved high rankings in publications such as
Forbes Magazine, as well as annual
U.S. News & World Report surveys. The business school's program was fifth "Best Executive MBA" by
BusinessWeek in 2005. Other highly ranked schools include library and information studies, medicine, pharmacy, and public health. Nationally, UNC is in the top ten public universities for research.
The undergraduate program has ranked in the top 30 in the United States by
U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently among the top five public universities, just behind
UC Berkeley,
University of Virginia,
UCLA, and the
University of Michigan.
Kiplinger's Personal Finance has also ranked UNC as the number one "best value" public school for in-state students. Similarly, the university is first among public universities and ninth overall in "Great Schools, Great Prices," based on academic quality, net cost of attendance and average student debt. Along with one of the nation's most acclaimed undergraduate honors programs in a public institution, UNC also has the highest percentage of undergraduates studying abroad for any public institution.
Scholarships
UNC has for decades offered an undergraduate merit scholarship known as the Morehead Scholarship (currently named the Morehead–Cain Scholarship). Recipients receive tuition, room and board, books, and funds for summer study for four years. Since the inception of the Morehead scholarship program, 23 alumni of the program have been named
Rhodes Scholars. North Carolina also boasts the
Robertson Scholars Program, a scholarship granting recipients the opportunity to attend both UNC and neighboring
Duke University. Additionally, the university provides merit-based scholarships, including the Carolina Scholars program, which offers full scholarships for out-of-state students.
North Carolina has the second largest number of Rhodes Scholars among public universities (41 since 1902) behind the
University of Virginia. Additionally, many students have won
Truman,
Goldwater,
Mitchell,
Churchill,
Fulbright, and Mellon scholarships.
Athletics
The school sports teams participate in the
NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and
Atlantic Coast Conference. The NCAA refers to UNC as "University of North Carolina" for athletics. The university has won 33 NCAA team championships in six different sports, ninth all-time, and 51 individual national championships. These include eighteen NCAA championships for
women's soccer, five for
women's field hockey and four for men's lacrosse and
men's basketball. Other recent successes include consecutive
College World Series appearances by the baseball team. In 1994, the university's athletic programs won the
Sears Directors Cup "all-sports national championship" awarded for cumulative performance in NCAA competition. Consensus collegiate national athletes of the year from North Carolina include
Rachel Dawson in field hockey;
Phil Ford,
Tyler Hansbrough,
Antawn Jamison, and
Michael Jordan in men's basketball; and
Mia Hamm (twice),
Shannon Higgins,
Kristine Lilly, and
Tisha Venturini in women's soccer.
Student organizations
Most student organizations at UNC are officially recognized and provided with assistance by the Carolina Union, an administrative unit of the university. Funding is derived from the
student government student activity fee, which is allocated at the discretion of the student government's congress.
Charity
The largest student fundraiser, the UNC Dance Marathon, involves thousands of students, faculty and community members in raising funds for the
North Carolina Children's Hospital. The organization conducts fundraising and volunteer activities throughout the year and has donated $1.3 million to date since its inception in 1999.
Many other
philanthropic organizations are at UNC, and the university has a tradition of public service. One of these organizations is the Scholars' Latino Initiative, which is a mentoring program to encourage
Latino high-school students to attend college.
Media
The student run newspaper
The Daily Tar Heel is ranked highly by
The Princeton Review, and has received other awards such as the Pacemaker award from the
Associated Collegiate Press. The
DTH, as known on campus, presented news services online as early as
1995.
Founded in 1977,
WXYC 89.3 FM is UNC's student radio station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Programming is left up to student DJs. WXYC typically plays little heard music from a wide range of genres and eras. On
November 7,
1994, WXYC became the first radio station in the world to broadcast its signal over the internet. A student-run television station,
STV also exists.
Music
The athletic teams at the university are supported by the Marching Tar Heels, the university's
marching band. This all-volunteer band consisting of 275 members supports the 28 Olympic sports programs, including basketball, field hockey, football, lacrosse, soccer, volleyball and wrestling.
Greek and honor societies
Many
fraternities and
sororities on campus belong to the Pan-Hellenic Council, including Interfraternity Council, Greek Alliance Council, and
National Pan-Hellenic Council. Fifteen percent of undergraduates are Greek. UNC also offers professional and service fraternities that don't have houses but are still recognized by the school. Honor societies such as the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Order of the Grail-Valkyries, and the Order of the Old Well, also exist.
Student government
Student government is composed of an executive branch headed by the student body president, a legislative branch composed of a student-elected 40-member student congress, and a judicial branch composed of a student-run honor system, including an honor court and the student supreme court. Additional student government bodies include an elections board, and the loosely-affiliated Carolina Athletic Association. Student government authority derives from the Student Code, a document written and adopted in
1946 at the suggestion of Douglass Hunt. Prior to that time, the
Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies as well as other organizations supported student concerns. The Student Body President is a voting member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.
Traditions
Honor code
Student self-governance is another cherished tradition at UNC. Carolina has a longstanding
honor code known as the "Instrument of Student Judicial Governance," supplemented by an honor court to resolve issues with students accused of academic and conduct offenses against the university community. Faculty are forbidden to punish students caught cheating in any way (such as failing grades), but instead are to report such cases to the student attorney general. Only if found guilty in the Honor Court, composed of students, can a student be sanctioned.
Mascot and nickname
The team is nicknamed "
Tar Heels", in reference to the state's eighteenth century prominence as a
tar and
pitch producer. The nickname's cultural relevance, however, has a complex history that includes anecdotal tales from both the
American Civil War and the
American Revolution. There is also an
anthropomorphic ram mascot who appears at games. The modern Rameses is depicted in a sailor's hat, a reference to a
United States Navy flight training program that was attached to the university during
World War II.
Rivalries
The
South's Oldest Rivalry between North Carolina and its first opponent, the
University of Virginia, was prominent throughout the 1980s. September 2007 saw the 112th meeting in
football between the two teams. The bitterness of this rivalry has been superseded by somewhat less historical in-state competition with
Duke University,
North Carolina State University, and
Wake Forest University. North Carolina's rivalry with Duke is particularly intense in
basketball. For several decades, both teams have been frequent contenders for the national championship, and, located just eight miles (13 km) apart, the students and fans of the two schools are focused in their enmity.
Traditionally, the students exchange pranks with North Carolina State, including painting their "
Free Expression Tunnel" blue every year before big athletic competitions. In retaliation, North Carolina State University students travel to
Chapel Hill to play their fight song and occasionally dye fountains red. After important basketball victories, there's a tradition for students to rush downtown to
Franklin Street, which the police shut to traffic. People converge at and around Franklin and Columbia Streets, near campus, and light bonfires.
School colors
Since the beginning of the intercollegiate athletics at UNC in the late nineteenth century, the school's colors have been
Carolina blue and
white. The colors were chosen years before, with the blue, a shade similar to
sky blue, representing the
Dialectic Society and white representing the
Philanthropic Society. The school had required participation in one of the clubs, and traditionally the "Di"s were from the western part of North Carolina, and the "Phi"s were from the eastern part of North Carolina. On public occasions, both groups were equally represented, and eventually both colors were used by processional leaders to signify the unity of both groups as part of the university.
Further Information
Get more info on 'University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://university_of_north_carolina_at_chapel_hill.totallyexplained.com">University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
