Co-education: Through a Woman’s Eyes

This blog post was written by Brittany Hedrick, an undergraduate history department intern who worked in University Archives in Fall 2015. As part of her internship, she also conducted two oral history interviews -- one for the University Archives' Institutional Memory Project and one for the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project. 

In 1963 Woman’s College was officially renamed the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This name change correlated with the decision to make all UNC system schools co-educational. There were several reasons for this new change. Parents and prospective male students sent letters insisting admittance to the school because of financial situations. Additionally, Woman’s College enrollment continued to steadily decrease and the state could no longer afford to refuse male enrollment. The decrease in enrollment was partly due to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s decision to begin admitting women as freshmen.

Opponents to co-education felt that female enrollment would decrease due to parents sending their children elsewhere. Some opponents felt that male applicants were apt to be rejects from Chapel Hill and State. Female students were divided on the issue, and reactions were mixed. Opponents and supporters of co-education took turns painting the McIver Statue pink and blue. In December of 1988, Maynard Southern spoke to the Greensboro News and Record stating, “Some resented the decision while others were pretty receptive.” In a 2006 oral history interview, Gail Hicks Fripp (Class of 1963) recalls feeling, “It would be the end of the university as we knew it…we thought we were equal to Ivy League Sister Schools. Many women thought it was going to be the end of the world, and there was no way we could fight it…so nobody protested.” In fact, public opposition was minimal and this might be due to the fact that women during this time period often did not challenge authority. They might have felt their voices would not be heard or their opinions would not matter. Some of these women had been following orders their entire lives.

Regardless of minimal opposition on campus, a large portion of women resented the change. This opposition was especially evident through Woman’s College alumnae. The 1974 summer issue of Alumni News illuminates alumnae opposition and states that initial reaction of alumnae in regards to male admittance were feelings of betrayal; a loss of ideals for which the institution once stood. Alumnae felt the presence of male students would ruin what was once a superior woman’s college. They believed the change would result in a loss of prestige and a decrease in woman’s participation. The alumnae regarded the pre-co-education time period as the “good ol’ days” when leadership potential was easier for woman to obtain while attending Woman’s College. Women feared leadership roles would fall to men and that women would gradually fall from faculty positions. Moreover, there were fears that co-education would bring demands for Greek life and football.

Opponents suggested the institution was shifting from a superior woman’s college to a mediocre university. In a 2015 oral history interview, Dr. Sue Medley (Class of 1965) stated, “There were different reactions, some people resented—to this day—but others were more accepting and realizing the need to perhaps to make some changes, but there was a culture and an atmosphere that was lost.” An October 1963 issue of the Carolinian student newspaper even stated that women were concerned about having to put rollers in their hair at night in order to be presentable for class and feared the loss of individuality and equality.

Although there was opposition and division among the female students in regards to the new changes, an increasing number of female students preferred co-education. The trend in American higher education was toward co-education nationwide; partly a response to World War II and the introduction of the G.I. Bill. Within this national trend, some opponents even compared single-sex education to racial segregation. Ultimately, co-education, to many, was simply an economic response to falling enrollments. For the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, co-education resulted in tripling enrollment. However, many student leadership roles previously held by women were held by men after co-education.

Confronting the AIDS epidemic at UNCG

The AIDS epidemic in the United States officially began in June 1981, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported several unusual medical cases in five homosexual men from Los Angeles. Initially termed gay-related immune deficiency (GRID) for its prevalence to appear in homosexuals, the disease was reclassified in August 1982 as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The initial uncertainty within the medical community about the pathology of the disease along with its high mortality rate, created uneasiness and apprehension across the United States. The lack of an urgent response by the U.S. Government towards the crisis exacerbated the spread of the infection and stigma associated with the disease. By the end of 1983, the number of AIDS diagnoses in the country had risen to 3,364 with 1,292 having died as a result.

While the number of AIDS cases continued to rise, colleges and universities were unprepared for how to address the disease on their campuses. In 1985, the American Council on Education and the American College Health Association released reports and brochures that outlined the best known information on the disease, as well as guidelines for how institutions should respond.

Reacting to the national initiative to reduce the spread of AIDS through dissemination of information, the University of North Carolina’s General Administration announced in November of 1985 that they intend to launch a campus-based educational program concerning AIDS. The goal was to provide useful information on the subject to members of each campus in an effort to limit the spread of AIDS and dispel ignorance and misinformation that could lead to inappropriate responses to the disease. Several suggested actions included the General Administration producing an informational handout, encouraging the creation of a campus committee to coordinate AIDS related issues, and arranging to have medical and legal experts provide assistance in addressing the problem. Ultimately, the responsibility for ensuring effective communication about the disease within each campus rested with the administration of each university.

UNCG's Student Health Services Policy on AIDS

Following the announcement, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) began outlining policies and approaches for how to best address the potential for AIDS on campus. In November of 1985, UNCG’s Student Health Services drafted a preliminary policy for dealing with AIDS patients. This included procedures such as “advise the patient of possible social problems, particularly in residence halls, if it is known or rumored that he/she has AIDS” and “suggest that if he/she elects to remain in school that it might be in their best interest to consider residing off campus” due to the social consequences. The policy also clearly stated that AIDS victims (as they were described) would not be barred from classes, from using university facilities, or from public gatherings.

In February of 1986, an Infectious Disease Task Force was created by UNCG with the charge of designing educational programming on AIDS and creating an appropriate administrative response with policies towards the disease. This proactive educational approach towards AIDS would continue throughout the year. In April of 1986, a questionnaire was given to students to ascertain their level of concern and their attitude about AIDS.  Schools and department also were encouraged to incorporate information about AIDS into their courses and programming in an effort to increase awareness.

Today, the need to inform students, faculty, and staff about AIDS on campus has lessened as knowledge about the disease has become more widespread over the last thirty years. However, UNCG still maintains information about AIDS on its website and periodically offers free, confidential HIV testing for students.

Dr. Anna Maria Gove, Lady Doctress

When it came time to form the State Normal and Industrial College (now UNCG) in 1891, student health was of the utmost importance.  And since the student body was comprised of young women, President Charles Duncan McIver wanted to provide the students with a campus physician who could care for all their needs.  Miriam Bitting served one year as campus physician before marrying and moving to New York.  The start of the second year of the young college saw a need for a new physician to take Dr. Bitting's place.   Upon the recommendations of several of her instructors and mentors, including a letter from Emily Blackwell, the third woman in the United States to earn a medical degree, Dr. Anna Maria Gove was hired as the second woman physician for State Normal in 1893.

Anna Gove was born on July 6, 1867 in Whitefield, New Hampshire to Maria Pierce and Dr. George Sullivan Gove.  As the only daughter of a physician, Anna was exposed to the profession from a young age.  It was said that she often rode with her father on the back of his buggy to visit patients around the area.  So it seemed natural for Anna to pursue a medical career, even in a time when there were so few women doctors.  She attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary where she graduated in 1892.  After a one year internship at the New York Infant Asylum in New York City, Dr. Gove came to Greensboro.

Dr. Gove brought progressive ideas to the little woman's college in North Carolina.  She formulated and put into practice a system for every freshman to have a physical and medical examination upon entering school.  She would then lay out plans to correct minor medical defects while the student was at college.  State Normal was the third college in the United States to adopt this practice.

Even with Dr. Gove's diligence, illness came to the school through a number of epidemics.  She saw the students through a large measles outbreak in 1895.  Keeping the sick women quarantined away from their fellow students and reassuring parents of their daughters' well-being kept Dr. Gove busy.   When the typhoid epidemic descended on campus in 1899, Dr. Gove worked night and day to discover the source of the problem and assist the dozens of sick and dying students.  Shortly after the epidemic passed, Dr. Gove took a leave of absence from the school to recoup and recover both mentally and physically.

Perhaps because the typhoid epidemic left such and impression on Dr. Gove, she had a passion for keeping up-to-date on the changing medical field.  She took several leaves of absence from the school throughout her early career to increase her medical knowledge.  In 1896-1897, she spent a year studying internal medicine in Vienna, Austria.  She returned to Vienna in 1913-1914 to continue her post graduate studies, where she met and worked with the famous orthopedist, Adolf Lorens.  Dr. Gove even assisted on one of his surgeries.

Dr. Gove in her WWI uniform

With the outbreak of WWI, Dr. Gove looked for a way to become involved in the war effort.  Women doctors were not accepted into the army medical corps, so Dr. Gove sought another way to put her skills to use.  In March 1918, she joined the American Red Cross and travelled to France to serve with the Children's Bureau in Marseille.  Dr. Gove worked with refugee children, assisting with dietary and other health concerns.  After the war, she served with the Smith College Relief Unit in Somme, France, before returning to the college in 1920.

Dr. Gove spent much of the 1920s developing a Health and Hygiene Department at the college.  She attended numerous lectures at the University of Michigan on mental and physical hygiene and brought that knowledge back to North Carolina.  Dr. Gove was a pioneer in the detection and control of tuberculosis at colleges and was asked to read a paper on the subject at the meeting of the National Tuberculosis Association.

By the time of Dr. Gove's retirement in 1936, she was being widely recognized for all her contributions to the college and to the medical profession.  The campus infirmary was named for Dr. Gove on May 30, 1936.

Dr. Gove passed away on January 28, 1948 at age 80.

Happy Holidays!

The staff of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives wishes everyone a happy holiday season! We're taking a break this week, but please join us on Monday, January 4th for a new Spartan Story.

Woman's College students in a snowball fight on campus, 1942

Happy Holidays!

The staff of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives wishes everyone a happy holiday season! We're taking a break this week and next, but please join us on Monday, January 4th for a new Spartan Story.

A selection of Christmas cards received by the Woman's College/UNCG Alumni Association.
Alumni wrote to the Alumni Association secretary to update her on family, work, and other major life events.

Emmylou Harris: From UNCG to the Grand Ole Opry

Emmylou Harris in The Tempest, 1965

In April of 1976, country music star, Emmylou Harris, returned to Greensboro for a concert at the Piedmont Sports Arena. In celebration of this homecoming and her April 2nd birthday, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and local promoter, Bill Kennedy, declared it “Emmylou Harris Day” and held a “welcome back” party, inviting friends and professors who had known her when she was in college.  It had been only a little over a decade since Harris left The University of North Carolina at Greensboro to pursue her dreams, and on that April day in 1976, she was quickly on way to realizing them.
Born in Alabama and raised in North Carolina and Virginia, Harris entered UNCG in the fall of 1965 on a drama scholarship. While on campus, she appeared in plays, such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest and a children’s theatre production of The Dancing Donkey, before deciding that she would rather pursue a musical career.


The Dancing Donkey, 1966

It was during her time at UNCG, that Harris became part of a folk music duo called “The Emerald City” with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate, Mike Williams. Singing primarily folk songs by artists such as Bob Dylan and the Everly Brothers, they booked local venues as well as clubs as far afield as Virginia Beach and Washington D.C.


Harris also sang at the Red Door, a bar on Tate Street that had a “coffee house” atmosphere. She later admitted to actively trying to imitate the sounds of Joan Baez and Judy Collins, popular folk singers of the time. In a 1992 interview, Harris recalls that the Red Door paid $10 a night and all the beer that you could drink – a poor deal considering that Harris did not drink beer. Those who saw her perform remember her as tall, pretty, and talented.




Emmylou Harris performing in 2008
(CC BY-SA 2.0 Eric Frommer)

Realizing that her true love was not drama but music, she dropped out of college and headed for Virginia Beach, singing and waiting tables. After brief stints in New York and Nashville, Harris landed in the Washington D.C. music scene where she would catch her big break. While playing at a Georgetown nightclub, she met Gram Parsons, a young singer and songwriter with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, who was about to break out with his first solo album. Parsons’ blend of country and rock was a good fit for Harris and they recorded two albums and toured together before his death of an accidental drug overdose at the age of twenty-six. Harris considers Parsons her mentor and credits him for shaping her into the artist that she is today. Her style evolved as a successful combination of country, folk, and bluegrass, which has made Harris an extremely innovative and influential artist. She would continue to collaborate with other musicians, such as her friends Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton, and record her own albums as well, eventually winning a total of thirteen Grammys and inductions into the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame. In addition to making beautiful music, Harris has raised two daughters and become an advocate for causes such as animal rights and global landmine awareness. 

An Original Spartan -- Tom Martin (Class of 1970)

C. Thomas Martin has been a part of UNCG for most of his life. Originally from Burlington, North Carolina, Martin's family moved to Greensboro and lived near campus in houses on Tate and Spring Garden streets. He attended the university-owned Curry School from grades 4-12. While he was at Curry School, he played on the Men's Basketball team and set records for most rebounds (25) and points (50) in a game.

After graduating from Curry, Martin attended Gardner-Webb junior college before returning to Greensboro to enroll at UNCG. It wasn't long before he recognized some fellow rival basketball players from his Curry School days. They encouraged him to join the newly-formed Men's Basketball team at UNCG. Martin later said he didn't even know they had a men's team at that time. This was understandable since UNCG had only started accepting male students in the fall of 1964. It was the introduction of men's athletics that also necessitated the need for a mascot for the school's intercollegiate athletic teams. Martin joined the nascent team with eleven other students under coach Jim Swiggett and became the UNCG Spartans.

Although the team's early seasons produced few wins, the team was largely competitive and Martin was a large reason for that. Martin, who was one of the team's tri-captains, averaged 15 points a game and still holds the record for rebounds in a single game.

Tom Martin #50

When he wasn't playing basketball, Martin worked hard on his degree in Political Science and also met his future wife, and fellow UNCG student, Mary Hoyng (Class of 1971).

After graduation, Martin put his UNCG degree to work in a career that spanned 33 years of service in the Planning Department of the City of Greensboro. Beginning work as a Planning Technician and rising through the ranks to become Director of Planning, Martin retired in December of 2003.

Even while busy with an important job with the City of Greensboro, Martin still made time for UNCG. He has volunteered and served in many capacities for UNCG including, but not limited to: Chairman of the Spartan Club (1992-1996), Tournament Director of 1997 and 1998 NCAA's Women's Soccer Championships (held at UNCG), Excellence Foundation member, UNCG Hall of Fame Committee Chairman, and University Planning Council member.

In 2002, Martin made history again when he was elected president of the UNCG Alumni Association, the first male to hold that post. That same year, Martin was inducted into the UNCG Athletics Hall of Fame.

Martin and his wife, Mary, continued to show support for current UNCG athletes by establishing the C. Thomas Martin Athletic Scholarship, an endowment fund that is awarded to women in the basketball program who have demonstrated a high level of competition and academic performance.

Martin has also been recognized as one of UNCG Athletic's biggest fans with the Super Spartan Award and more recently, was a recipient of the Alumni Association's UNCG/WC Legacy Award (2014) for alumni who have made significant contributions that exemplify value, character, and high integrity.

An original Spartan, Martin continues to support current Spartans to this day.