Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1789-1991

Collection Number: 40095

Collection Title: Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1789-1991

This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.

Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size	174.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 133,000 items)
Abstract	The Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance had administrative responsibility for the university's Division of Business and Finance, which consisted of the units that handle the university's budget, facilities planning and capital improvements, maintenance of buildings and grounds, security, personnel and property matters, and routine business operations. The position of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance evolved from that of Business Manager, created in 1921 and known successively as Controller, Assistant Controller, and Assistant Controller and Business Manager. The collection includes correspondence, budgets and financial records, building plans and specifications, and other files relating to the work of the Division of Business and Finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This group also contains the historical financial records of the university from 1789 to 1920, including scattered accounts of the university's Board of Trustees, Treasurer, and Bursar. Topics of particular importance include the early financial history of the university and the history and sale of the university-owned utilities, 1932-1984.
Creator	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance.
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. University Archives.
Language	English

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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.; Materials in the Addition of June 2016 are closed until 2046 due to FERPA restrictions.

Preferred Citation: [Identification of item], in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40095, University Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material: Microfilm copy available.

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.

Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: University Archives Staff, April 1981, December 1981, October 1982, May 1985, June 1985, February 1986, May 1988, May 1992, August 1992, October 1992, May 1995, October 1997, March 1998; Jennifer Coggins, June 2016

Encoded by: Bari Helms, April 2005, Gergana Abernathy, June 2016

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, October 2020; Dawne Howard Lucas, November 2021

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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.

Expand/collapse Historical Information

The position of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance, created in 1968, had administrative responsibility for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Division of Business and Finance, which consisted of the units that handled the University's budget, facilities planning and capital improvements, maintenance of buildings and grounds, security, personnel and property matters, and routine business operations.

The organizational development of the Division of Business and Finance was an evolutionary one. For the first hundred and twenty five years of its existence, the University conducted its business and financial operations chiefly through its Board of Trustees. The University's charter called for the trustees to "elect and commissionate some person to be Treasurer for the said university". The Treasurer, originally not a member of the Board, supervised the collection of University revenues (mainly from land sales, bequests, investments and escheats) and the disbursement of funds for salaries, supplies, equipment, and building construction and upkeep. During the antebellum period the collection of student fees and other routine campus business were generally left to the faculty, who appointed one of their members to perform these duties. Originally the Steward, who provided meals on campus, was responsible for the care and maintenance of the buildings. When the stewardship was abolished, responsibility for buildings and grounds also fell to the faculty. Occasionally the faculty complained about the burden of this extra work, and in 1827 a citizen of Chapel Hill was hired to serve as Superintendent of Property and Financial Concerns. However, the arrangement proved unsatisfactory, and the superintendency reverted to the faculty in 1829.

Through the years the faculty member in this position was accorded various titles, including Receiver of College Dues, Superintendent of Buildings and Lands, and Superintendent of Property and Financial Concerns. In 1836, when Elisha Mitchell assumed the position, its title changed to Bursar. During most of the antebellum period, the Bursar and his predecessors were authorized to pay faculty salaries out of tuition receipts; they also paid for building repairs and other routine expenses. At the end of each session the Bursar made a report to the Treasurer detailing the amounts collected and spent and remitted any unspent balance. This system, with some modification, remained in use until the early twentieth century. With the reopening of the University in 1875, the faculty was relieved of the burden of the bursarship; and Andrew Mickle, a Chapel Hill resident, was appointed to the position. He was succeeded in 1882 by Willie T. Patterson, a Civil War veteran and trained bookkeeper, who remained in the job for twenty-seven years.

As the University grew larger and more complex, so did the Bursar's job. In 1881 the University began to receive direct legislative appropriations. The appropriations were received by the Treasurer, who transferred them to the Bursar, who was increasingly responsible for their disbursement. In the 1890s the Bursar also assumed responsiblity for keeping accounts of the proceeds from Chapel Hill's electric and water utilities, which were built and managed by the University. By 1902 it was obvious to President Venable that the University needed to adopt more systematic accounting and audit procedures. The Board of Trustees and its Executive Committee, normally meeting on a semi-annual basis, could not provide the necessary day-to-day supervision of the University's growing--in terms of total revenue and scope of business operations--financial affairs. Venable's first step in addressing the situation was to create the position of Purchasing Agent and appoint Charles T. Woollen to it. Part of Woollen's job was to monitor accounts and keep track of what was being spent. To achieve this he established a system of requisitions for purchases that proved very successful. In 1908 Woollen became Proctor, retaining the responsibilities he had as Purchasing Agent and assuming oversight of buildings and grounds maintenance, the Power Plant, Commons Hall, the University Inn, and the University Press.

In 1912 Richard H. Battle, who had served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Board of Trustees since 1891, died. At this juncture the Trustees, with Venable's urging, abolished the office of Bursar and transferred the responsibilities of that position to the Treasurer, who would henceforth be required to reside in Chapel Hill. Julius A. Warren, Cashier of the Merchants National Bank of Durham, was selected as the new Treasurer. Together Warren and Woollen continued to modernize the system of budgetary controls. However, neither of them had the ultimate authority for the University's financial and business affairs. In 1914 Woollen's title changed from Proctor to Business Manager, but his responsibilities remained the same.

Venable's successors lobbied for consolidating the oversight of business and financial affairs in a single position. Finally, at its meeting of 14 June 1921, the Board of Trustees approved President Harry W. Chase's plan to consolidate the oversight in the position of Business Manager. That position, subsequently called Controller, then Assistant Controller (following the creation of the Consolidated University system), Assistant Controller and Business Manager, and finally Business Manager, continued to evolve as the University continued to grow and as systems of accounting and budgetary control that had been adequate in earlier decades became outmoded.

In May 1968 the University hired Joseph C. Eagles, Jr., for the new position of Vice Chancellor, Finance, placing him administratively over the Business Manager. In the fall of that year, the Trustees abolished the position of Business Manager, and Eagles assumed the title of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance. Soon afterward he engaged a consulting firm to review the University's business and financial operations. This led in 1969 to a further reorganization of what had previously been called the Division of Business Affairs. The name of the division became Division of Business and Finance, and two Assistant Vice Chancellors were created. The Assistant Vice Chancellor for Finance had responsibility for budgetary matters, while the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Business was to oversee the Auxiliary Enterprises (later Auxiliary Services), which at that time included Purchases and Stores, Operations and Engineering, Planning, Physical Plant, and Utilities.

Since 1969 the units within the Division of Business and Finance have proliferated. Some of them have changed their names to better reflect their functions. By 1990 responsibility for them had been divided among four Associate Vice Chancellors: the Associate (formerly Assistant) Vice Chancellor for Finance, the Associate (formerly Assistant) Vice Chancellor for Business, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management (created in 1986), and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources (created in 1990).

The records of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance presently held in the University Archives reflect the structure that existed in the Division during the early and mid-1970s, when the principal units were the Finance Division; the Business Division; the Construction Administration Department, which oversaw the expenditure of the capital improvements budget and all campus construction projects; the Facilities Planning Office, which produced projections of future University space needs and capital improvement requests to meet those needs; the Personnel Department, which administered campus employment under the terms of the State Personnel Act; the Physical Plant, which maintained the University's buildings and grounds; the Property Office, which oversaw the University's real property, as well as handling all sales, purchases, and rental of property; and the Purchases and Stores Division, which controlled the purchase, use and disposal of equipment and the purchase and dispersal of supply items.

Business and Finance Officers, Titles and Tenure:

Charles T. Woollen

1902-1908	Purchasing Agent
1908-1914	Proctor
1914-1933	Business Manager
1933-1934	Controller

Livingston B. Rogerson

1934-1937	Assistant Controller
1937-1941	Assistant Controller and Business Officer
1941-1943	Assistant Controller and Business Manager

Claude E. Teague, Sr.

1943-1954	Assistant Controller and Business Manager
1954-1957	Business Manager

James A. Branch

1957-1966

Business Manager

James A. Williams

1966-1968

Acting Business Manager