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Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Student Health Coalition Project Collection #5649, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Materials transferred from the William W. Dow Papers (#05612) in September 2015 (Acc. 102311). Materials donated by Diane Lauver in September 2015 (Acc. 102320); Irwin Venick in October 2015 (Acc. 102321) and June 2017 (Acc. 103087); Cathy Barrow Heck in December 2015 (Acc. 102478); Dr. Lewis Lefkowitz in December 2015 (Acc. 102479); Deede Wyatt in January 2016 (Acc. 102508); Sue Love in May 2016 (Acc. 102595); Rosie Hammond in June 2016 (Acc. 102608); Biff Hollingsworth in November 2016 (Acc. 102996); Ron Carson in May 2017 (Acc. 103069); Jack Beckford in June 2017 (Acc. 103085); Lee Anne O'Brien in June 2017 (Acc. 103086); Roberta Joffrion Ingle in June 2017 (Acc. 103088); Barbara Clinton in July 2017 (Acc. 103111); Rob Cheplicki in September 2017 (Acc. 103150); Deborah Coggswell in November 2017 (Acc. 103176); Richard Davidson in August 2018 (Acc. 103417); Lark Hayes in March 2019 (103570); John E. Davis in April 2019 (Acc. 103582); Lark Hayes and Margaret Ecker in May 2019 (Acc. 103601); Bernetiae Reed in July 2019 (Acc. 103643); Linda Hart in August 2019 (Acc. 103661); and Diane Lauver in February 2020 (Acc. 20200214.6). Materials in Series 6 were generated by Southern Historical Collection during September 2015 event (Acc. 102480). Periodic transfers from participants.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Ashlyn Velte, August 2016

Encoded by: Gergana Abernathy, August 2016

Revisions by: Gergana Abernathy, August 2016; Patrick Cullom, February 2017; Mary Oliva and Jodi Berkowitz, June 2017; Nancy Kaiser, April and July 2019; Laura Smith, May 2019; Nancy Kaiser, November 2019; Jodi Berkowitz, August 2021

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Community health services--Administration.
• Community health services--Photographs.
• Community health services.
• Dow, Bill, 1945-2012.
• Health promotion.
• Health services accessibility--Southern States--Photographs.
• Health services accessibility--Southern States.
• Medical students--Scholarships, fellowships, etc.--United States.
• Medical students--Training of--Photographs.
• Medical students--Training of.
• Public health--Alabama.
• Public health--North Carolina.
• Public health--Southern States.
• Public health--Tennessee--Photographs.
• Public health--Tennessee.
• Rural health services--North Carolina.
• Rural health services--Southern States.
• Rural health services--Tennessee--Photographs.
• Rural health services--Tennessee.
• Student Health Coalition--Photographs.
• Student Health Coalition.
• Vanderbilt University. Center for Health Services.
• Vanderbilt University. School of Medicine.

• William W. Dow Papers (#5612)
• Richard Davidson Photographs of the Appalachian Student Health Coalition and the Mountain People's Health Council (#5613)

In 1968, as a sophomore, William W. Dow traveled to New York to meet with representatives from 14 other medical schools as well as representatives from the Josiah Macy Foundation. The foundation sponsored the conference and offered opportunities for funding to students with project concepts. Dow felt that the needs of rural communities were not being met, and suggested what became the Student Health Coalition to the Macy Foundation. The foundation thought that Dow's project should be done in conjunction with work by students at Meharry Medical College, a historically black college, whose focus was urban communities. Although Dr. Amos Christie at Vanderbilt agreed to be the principal investigator for Dow's project, the medical school refused to move forward on the project. Eventually, he took the project to Meharry Medical School who agreed to fund the project with Dr. Christie at Vanderbilt and Dr. Leslie Falk at Meharry set to serve as principal investigators and medical supervisors. As a result, in 1969, the first summer of the Student Health Coalition (SHC), the focus was on medical surveys in urban Nashville. However, Dow and Pat Maxwell also led a small group of Vanderbilt students through rural Tennessee to conduct surveys.

The Center for Health Services (CHS) was established in 1971 due to the need for an administrative structure to connect the SHC to the university and to work with the SHC in educational activities related to health care delivery. As the center developed, it was also the vehicle for additional action-oriented projects designed by various student and community groups. By 1974, there were three branches to the SHC connected to the CHS: the Urban Student Health Coalition, the Appalachian Student Health Coalition (also referred to as the Rural Student Health Coalition), and the West Tennessee Student Health Coalition.

The structure of the SHC involved medical students, nursing students, and supervising physicians from Vanderbilt University, who began spending most of their summers in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee, offering free physical examinations and lab tests to anyone who walked through the doors of a local elementary school, community center, or clinic during a week-long "Health Fair." After screening hundreds of men, women, and children, the students and doctors would pack up their equipment and travel to another low-income community, a cycle repeated six to ten times every summer from 1969 to 1976.

While the Health Fairs moved from place to place, a team of "community workers" would stay put in one place for the entire summer. They were mostly liberal arts undergraduates or law students from Vanderbilt University. Typically, two or three students would be sent to a community, where prior to the Health Fair they would assist local residents with preparations, and afterwards they would help people find treatment for medical conditions detected by the physical exams or lab results. The community workers essentially community organizers, scouting out local leaders and building up grassroots organizations that would fight to change conditions in their area long after the students were gone. The community organizing initially focused on the formation of local health councils and the creation of resident-controlled primary care clinics. While diagnostic check-ups and medical follow-up for people in need was part of the SHC agenda, the larger goal was to improve the quality of life in rural communities by empowering residents to take charge of their own health and welfare.

After the creation of Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM) in 1972, the organizing initiated and supported by SHC went in other directions. Local residents, armed with research done by a SHC special projects team that documented the failure of corporate landowners in East Tennessee to pay taxes on lands rich in minerals and timber, had challenged the historic pattern of inequitable taxation - and won. SOCM was formed to build on this win, tackling other problems afflicting Appalachian communities, including unregulated strip mining, corporate pollution of wells and streams, and insufficient revenue for schools, roads, and other services. The community workers continued to seed and to support local health councils, but after 1972, in areas of Appalachia where SOCM was active, much of their ancillary organizing directed at complementing the efforts the leaders and organizers of the new multi-county organization.

As SHC and SOCM were working to expand the power of local residents, other SHC participants were working to expand the role and responsibilities of nurses. At the Health Fairs, nursing students performed physical examinations under the watchful eye of attending physicians. When they returned to school in the Fall, they pushed against the boundaries of their profession's traditional training, practice, and roles. In 1972, at the instigation of nursing students, medical students, and doctors affiliated with the SHC, Vanderbilt's School of Nursing created one of the first programs in the country to train nurse practitioners.

During the first two summers of 1969 and 1970, the SHC had focused its efforts on East Tennessee; in 1971, it began working in Appalachian communities of Eastern Kentucky; and by 1974, it was also holding Health Fairs in southeast Virginia and western North Carolina. Some of the sites that hosted health fairs over the years include: Clairfield, Jellico, White Oak, Murfreesboro, Smithville, Briceville, Sneedville, Deer Lodge, Etowah, Norma, Petros, Stoney Fork, Tracy City, and Ashland City in Tennessee; Frakes, Harlan County, Mulberry, Wallins Creek, and Kelper in Kentucky; and St. Charles and Meadowview in Virginia. Eventually, the SHC added African American communities in West Tennessee and Alabama. Most of the SHC's medical workers and community workers continued to come from Vanderbilt, but students from other schools joined the SHC's ranks in later years, including graduate students and undergraduates from Peabody, Yale, Notre Dame, Duke, Rutgers, University of the South, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Virginia.

The Student Health Coalition Project is a collaboration between the Southern Historical Collection and former Student Health Coalition (SHC) leaders, aimed at documenting the history of the SHC's health care, community organizing, and advocacy work in the Appalachian region. The project collection consists of papers donated by many former SHC participants and records gathered by the staff of the Southern Historical Collection that document the process of developing this participatory archive.

Series 1. Files transferred from the William W. Dow Papers (#05612) that document two SHC reunions. One attended by Dow in 2009, and another hosted in Nashville in 2013 after Dow's death in 2012. Materials include correspondence between former coalition members including Rick Davidson, Lark Hayes, Margaret Ecker, Mary Ruth Martin, Tom John, John Davis, Virginia Munford and Rod Lorenz; photographs from 1970s; planning materials for the 2013 reunion; reports related to the coalition (1970-1974); scrapbooks made for the 2013 reunion; and programs from the 2013 memorial service for Dow in Nashville. Digital materials include videos of the CHS and the SHC shown during the reunions, and photographs taken during the 2009 reunion. An Addition of September 2017 (Acc. 103150) consists of digital photographs and videos documenting the 2013 reunion.

Further additions to this series are filed in 1A. Student Health Coalition Reunion and Field Work Materials. The addition of March 2016 consists of east Tennessee interviews with Marie Cirillo and Kate Bradley. The addition of May 2017 consists of Charles Health Clinic materials, including born digital photographs, video and audio recordings, presentations, transcriptions, and related documents collected during the 21-23 April 2017 visit to St. Charles, Va. The addition of 2019 consists of interviews by Bernetiae Reed, a community archivist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, of Fannie Albright on behalf of the Appalachian Student Health Coalition (ASHC) in west Tennessee. Fannie Albright was a housekeeper in Rossville Community Health Clinic/Poor People's community Health Center and hosted ASHC workers in her home one summer. There are also photographs of historic markers, the courthouse, and John McFerren's grocery store in Somerville, Fayette County, Tenn.; and videorecordings of a New Heaven Baptist Church service and the Poor People's Health Council Annual Meeting in Shelby County, Tenn.

Series 2. Student Health Coalition Archives Project Materials includes copies of the coalition's first annual report and "Look Books" prepared for former Student Health Coalition (SHC) members gathered in September 2015 at Wilson Library in Chapel Hill to discuss goals for the project in collaboration with Southern Historical Collection. Participants also were provided with two large photograph reproduction to identify by hand the people and events taking place. The aim was to remind them of events and preserve their conversations. The images in the "Look Books" and reproductions were largely sourced from the Richard Davidson Photographs (#5613), and handwritten notes penned during the meeting explain both who is featured in some photographs and what was happening.

Series 3. Student Health Coalition Archives Project Participant Contributions gathers together materials donated by participants in the project.

Series 3.1. Dianne Lauver trained Community Health Workers and worked with the SHC at Vanderbilt and in North Carolina. The materials she gathered on her experience include drafts of training and education materials for Community Health Workers in the Appalachian Student Health Coalition (ASHC), and the North Carolina Rural Student Health Coalition. The series also contains pamphlets and publications on the SHC, health clinic documentation for the Laurel Forks Health Clinic, and an article on Nurse Practitioners written by Richard Davidson and Dianne Lauver.

Series 3.2 Irwin Venick worked with the ASHC and the CHS at Vanderbilt University in the 1970s, eventually becoming a lawyer in Nashville, Tenn. The series includes subject files on social and environmental issues in Tennessee and the South, authored by people associated with the coalition, as well as reports written in 1980 on primary health care in Tennessee, which Venick helped complete. Other materials include a group photograph that possibly depicts the extended family of Byrd Duncan, a community leader who was instrumental in organizing Health Fairs, and the Briceville Health Council; photographs from a community event in west Tennessee featuring Square Mormon, an African-American community leader; photographs of the Urban Student Health Coalition Health Fair; and miscellaneous papers.

Series 3.3. Cathy Barrow Heck attended Vanderbilt University and worked with the SHC in 1974 as a pediatric examiner. In 1975, she became a co-director of the ASHC with Cindy Lutenbacher. The materials document her experience leading the coalition, containing handwritten drafts of the coalition's annual reports, correspondence, materials for SHC grant proposals, articles and clippings about the SHC, schedules and participant lists for organizing summer health fairs, and materials from a training course that Cathy Barrow Heck took at Vanderbilt prior to her summertime service with the SHC.

Series 3.4. In 1965, Dr. Lewis Lefkowitz arrived at Vanderbilt University and began a community-based elective for students. After Dr. Amos Christie invited him to a meeting with students interested in starting the SHC, he became one of its most important faculty supporters. Dr. Lefkowitz visited Health Fairs and organized the Urban Branch of the SHC, based in Nashville, and served on the board of the CHS for 18 years. The series contains copies of SHC and CHS annual reports from the late 1970s to late 1980s, as well as notes, correspondence, papers, and photographs on the SHC and CHS.

Series 3.5. Deede Wyatt participated in the SHC as a Vanderbilt University nursing student in the 1970s. Her time at Vanderbilt overlapped with a September 1972 visit by President Richard Nixon's daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox, who met with an eldery group and with the SHC while in Nashville. The series contains newspaper clippings about Cox's meeting with the SHC, which covered national health care, the specific health concerns of coal mining communities in rural Appalachia, and President Nixon's health care plans. Also included are materials about protests organized by former SHC members, including Deede Wyatt, who believed Cox's meeting with SHC to be a publicity stunt orchestrated by Vanderbilt and the Nixon administration during an election year. The group also had concerns about the motives and effectiveness of the SHC, and a notable item in the series is a press release expressing the views of the protesters and their concerns about the SHC.

Series 3.6. Sue C. Love participated in the Rural Student Health Coalition in the early 1970s as a medical worker and attended medical school at Vanderbilt University. At the same time, her future husband Cliff Love served as a community worker. The series consists of black-and-white photographs of a SHC meeting from the summer of 1972 at a cabin owned by either John Williams or John E. Davis. Pictured members include John Williams, John E. Davis, Tom John, Joe Little, Sue Love, and Irwin Venick. One color photograph depicts John Williams and Kate Bradely.

Series 3.7. Caryl Carpenter participated in the Rural Student Health Coalition in the mid to late 1970s. She worked with the Mountain People's Health Council and East Tennessee clinics, and documented activities related to the SHC in the 1970s. Images depict activities of the Mountain People's Health Council clinics in Norma, Stoney Fork, and Lake City, Tenn. Also included are images depicting a East Tennessee Clinics reunion that occurred in 1996.

Series 3.8. Jack Beckford participated in the Health Fair in Eastern Kentucky in the summer of 1971. A letter home shares updates about the Health Fair, its sponsors, the Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization and the Appalachian Regional Commission, and social and business activities.

Series 3.9. Rosie Hammond worked as a nursing student for the Student Health Coalition in the 1970s. The addition includes 45s on the Hyden Coal Mine Accident, "Nature's Lamentation" by Bill Christopher; "New River Girl" by Pitney Sieber; Together: A Case Book of Joint Practices in Primary Care, a nursing text book full of case studies including a story from the Student Health Coalition; Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley by John Gaventa; Bill Dow's Vanderbilt Hospital medical doctor jacket, 1971; and a t-shirt from the 20th anniversary reunion for the Student Health Coalition in 1988.

Series 3.10. Lee Anne Faulkner O'Brien is a white pediatrician near Nashville, Tenn. In 1986, she led a student health coalition tour of medical students to Frontier Nursing Service, Mud Creek Clinic, and Cloverfork Clinic, all in Kentucky, and to clinics in St. Charles, Clinch River, and western Lee County, Va. The addition documents the 1986 Appalachian Health Study Tour by the American Medical Student Association to introduce medical students to the specific health concerns and solutions of Appalachian communities.

Series 3.11. Rebecca Joffrion Ingle is a white nurse practioner in Tennessee. In 1974, Ingle worked with the traveling health fair of the Student Health Coalition as a pediatric examiner. The addition includes typed reports and history of Student Health Coalition, including a 20th anniversary history by Marie Cirillo; a news clipping about the health fair and visiting students in St. Charles, Va.; and photographs of summer health fairs in St. Charles and Ewing, Va., and Robbins and Jacksboro, Tenn., as well as students participating in the social life and customs in these communities.

Series 3.12. Barbara Clinton was the Center for Health Services director 1988-2013. The addition contains annual reports from the CHS, ASHC, and the Student Environmental Health Project (STEP); reports on the coalition's efforts; and CHS files on its history, programs, funding, 25th anniversary, bylaws, and publicity. Additional materials include Barbara Clinton's cirriculum vitae from 2017.

Series 3.13. Deborah Cogswell compiled a photograph album, circa 1971, with images from her time with the Student Health Coalition. The images document her experiences in several Appalachian communities, including White Oak, Briceville, Sneedville, Cosby and Deer Lodge, Tenn., and Grethel (Floyd County), Ky. Images depict health fairs put on by the Student Health Coalition, Cogswell’s host family (Willie and May Spears), gatherings at the home of Byrd Duncan near Briceville, trips to Pine Mountain State Park, and other outings with friends and fellow Coalition participants.

Series 3.14. Richard Davidson, a medical physician and educator, was among the founding participants of the Vanderbilt Student Health Coalition at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. (1970-1971) and the Mountain People's Health Council in eastern Tennessee (1975-1976). The addition contains video recordings of Davidson's interview with Robert Hartmann.

Series 3.15. Lark Hayes served as a law clerk with East Tennessee Research Corporation for two summers and a semester while earning her JD at Boston University School of Law. After serving as a law clerk with ETRC, Hayes initially became a legal services attorney in North Carolina, specializing in health law, and then as an environmental advocate with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill for 25 years. The series contains video and audio of two interviews with leaders of the East Tennessee Research Corporation, recorded in Nashville, Tenn., June 2018.

Series 3.16. John E. Davis, a white student who attended Vanderbilt University from 1967 to 1971, joined the Student Health Coalition in 1970 when he was 21 years old. Davis was one of six community workers assigned to Briceville, Tenn., where they prepared for the Student Health Coalition's health fairs, did follow up after the fairs, and continued to do community organizing. Karen Blaydes (1948-2009), another white student from Vanderbilt, also worked with the Student Health Coalition in Briceville during the summers of 1970 and 1971. The addition consists of two diaries, 1970-1971, kept by Davis, documenting his work with the Student Health Coalition; a newspaper clipping with a profile of Byrd Duncan, a community leader in Briceville, Tenn.; five photographs taken by Blaydes, together with explanatory notes by Davis.

Series 3.17. Linda Hart, on behalf of the White Oak clinic, one of four rural health clinics under the umbrella of United Health Services, made a statement before the Subcommittee on Health of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee. She spoke in favor of legislation that would allow the use of medicare payments to support direct care provided by nurse practioners. At this time, nurse practitioners were the primary caregivers in rural health clinics. This legislation was crucial to the financial survival of these local rural clinics.

Series 3.18. This series consists of interviews conducted by Student Health Coalition members, 6-7 November 2019 in Oneida, Elgin, and Robbins Scott County, Tenn. The interviews were conducted by Diane Lauver, Anne Dierdorff Thomas, and Irwin Venick, and the interviewees were James Lovett, Sharon Neal, June Burress Sharpe, Shelia J. Chambers, Debra Thompson, Donna Frogge, James Walker, and Joanne Walker.

• Oversized Paper Folders (OP-5649/1-3)
• Image Folders (PF-5649/1-3)
• Digital folders (DF-5649/1-25)
• Textiles (OB-5649/1)
• Audiodiscs (D-5649/1-2)