Education: Union in North Carolina

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North Carolina's three largest State-run institutions of higher learning last week became one. During the 1931 session of the North Carolina General Assembly, Governor Oliver Max Gardner urged that the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), North Carolina State College of Agriculture & Engineering (Raleigh, 30 mi. away) and North Carolina College for Women (Greensboro, 90 mi. away) be merged into a single great university, with a single head, a joint board of trustees. Overlapping courses, duplicated functions would be eliminated.* Governor Gardner, ambitious for North Carolina education, said his plan would be an "outstanding contribution" to higher education in the South. The Assembly voted the merger, the Governor appointed a commission to survey the colleges.

Many a "Tar Heel" has objected in principle to the merger. The University at Chapel Hill, quiet and urbane, feels sufficient unto itself, is proud to be one of the oldest state universities in the U. S. (chartered 1789). The State College felt the first effects of consolidation last year when Dr. Carl Cleveland Taylor, dean of its Graduate School, was ousted. Reason given was economy, but many an angry Liberal felt that President Eugene Clyde Brooks, antagonistic to Dean Taylor's social views, had seized upon the merger as a handy excuse.

Even proponents of the merger, however, were shocked last month when the expert surveyors—Dr. George Alan Works of the University of Chicago, Dr. Guy Stanton Ford of the University of Minnesota, President Frank Le Rond McVey of the University of Kentucky—made public their recommendations. They proposed that nearly all important University activities be centred in Chapel Hill, that the Raleigh institution be reduced to a junior college. This was too drastic for Governor Gardner, who hastened to Washington to confer about it with Dr. Frederick James Kelly of the U. S. Bureau of Education. Last week Governor Gardner met with the trustees of the new University, officially consummated the merger in a milder form than originally recommended. Beginning with the autumn term, the three colleges will be administered by one president in direct charge. Each will have a vice president. There will be one comptroller, one director of graduate work, one director of summer schools. Total number of students: 6,450.

The new president will soon be elected. It is almost certain to be small (5 ft. 6, 130 lb.), able, liberal Frank Porter Graham, president of the present University. Under Dr. Graham, the "Hill" has prospered culturally. In the new deal it may be better off financially—its budget was cut by one-third last spring; President Graham was obliged to raise loan funds for scholars and an emergency fund for the "Hill" itself. But "Tar Heels" are reluctant to surrender any part of their president. Last fortnight the lively Chapel Hill Weekly pointed out that individual presidents of the three state institutions could do as well themselves what the new University president (first known as "Chancellor" in the survey report) is supposed to do. Growled the Weekly: "We do not believe that the people of North Carolina are in any humor to create a new and costly office for the sake of show."

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