Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not processed and are currently not available to researchers. For information about access to these materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff. Please be advised that preparing unprocessed materials for access can be a lengthy process.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the General Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40134, University Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Periodic transfer from the offices that create these records.

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: University Archives Staff; Tierra Thomas, March 2019

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Laura Smith, March 2019; Nancy Kaiser, October 2020; Dawne Howard Lucas, December 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.

• Education, Higher--North Carolina--History.
• Educational fund raising--North Carolina--History.
• Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae--North Carolina.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Alumni and alumnae.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Finance.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--History.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Registers.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Alumni Association.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. General Alumni Association--History.

• University Archives started archiving selected websites of the academic and business units of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina General Administration, and student groups and organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in January 2013. To see if websites for this department or related departments have been archived visit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Harvested Websites (#40417).

The General Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was founded on 31 May 1843 as the Alumni Association. The founding members were a group of 31 alumni convened by Governor John Motley Morehead (Class of 1817) at the Commencement of 1843. The association continued to meet annually during commencement until 1860, when it disbanded. It reconvened in 1872 and has met annually since 1878. Until the turn of the century, alumni usually met at an evening banquet; but in the early 1900s, the Alumni Luncheon became the traditional annual meeting of the association.

In 1909 President Venable, recognizing the need for a more organized body, appointed a committee to find ways and means to improve the Alumni Association. The committee reported its findings at the commencement meeting of the association in 1910, and its report was adopted by the membership in 1911. The report recommended an appointive Alumni Council and a secretary to act as an administrative officer. The association was reorganized again in 1922, and its name became General Alumni Association. The association's central office has always been located on the campus and headed by the secretary (later director).

Individuals who have held the position of secretary/director of the Alumni Association have been:

A major activity of the Central Office of the Alumni Association, in addition to organizing reunions and sponsoring other alumni social events, has been to maintain alumni records. The first published alumni directory of the university was the Alumni Catalogue, which was issued largely through the efforts of Cornelia Phillips Spencer in 1889. In 1924, under the editorship of Daniel L. Grant, the Alumni History of the University of North Carolina, 1795-1924 was published by the General Alumni Association. This was followed in 1953 by the Alumni Directory, compiled and edited by the Alumni Office of the General Alumni Association, with support from the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Fund. In 1975, an updated directory was issued by the Alumni Office with financial support from Cornelia Spencer Love, granddaughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. Updated editions were again issued in 1984, 1990, 1997, and 2002.

Another activity of the Alumni Association has been to provide financial support to the university. One of the stated reasons for the reorganizations of 1911 and 1922 was to provide a channel through which the university could appeal to alumni for funds. The Alumni Loyalty Fund was established in 1916 under President Edward Kidder Graham, but it lapsed during World War I and was not revived until the early 1920s. It lapsed again during the depression and was not reestablished until 1952, when it was organized as Alumni Annual Giving. The Alumni Annual Giving Office was renamed Carolina Annual Giving in 1978. It was not administratively part of the General Alumni Association and had a separate director and board of directors who worked cooperatively with the officers of the association.

A third activity of the Alumni Association has been the publication of news of interest to alumni. The first such publication was the Alumni Quarterly, which appeared in 1894 and was discontinued after its second issue in January 1895. In 1912, as a result of the 1911 reorganization, the Alumni Review began publication and has been published continuously since then.

Other activities of the association's central office have included marshaling alumni support for the university in its biennial effort to secure state funds from the General Assembly of North Carolina. During the 1930s the Director of the Alumni Office was also in charge of the Student Survey Office, which was organized to inform high school students about the university and to encourage them to enroll. That responsibility was later transferred to the Admissions Office.

Records include minutes of meetings of the Alumni Association, 1843-1879, and of the General Alumni Association, 1923; scattered, mostly nineteenth-century, student and alumni records; and a few files, 1934-1937, pertaining to the Alumni Loyalty Fund, the predecessor of Carolina Annual Giving, and records of GAA student group Order of the Bell Tower.

• Oversize volume (SV-40134/5)
• Digital folders (DF-40134/1-2)