CELEBRATING
YEARS
This 1961 aerial photo by Bill Barley captures the rustic location of the new Charlotte College campus; the first two buildings shared space with an old barn.
A permanent campus
B
y the 1950s Charlotte College had outgrown its original home at Central High School. In 1957, J. Murrey Atkins, who chaired the first college advisory committee and later the Charlotte Community College System board, announced the selection of a 240-acre site for the future permanent home of Charlotte College. On Nov. 11, 1960, Bonnie Cone joined Atkins, L.P. McLendon, chairman of the North Carolina Board of Higher Education, and Addison Reese to break ground for the new campus’ first two buildings. These structures, built alongside a barn, were later named for W.A. Kennedy, a member of the college’s first advisory board, and Pierre
1965
The North Carolina House of Representatives passes a bill on March 2 to make Charlotte College The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, effective July 1. The institution becomes the fourth campus of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. On June 17, the Charlotte College Board of Trustees approves a resolution transferring title of the campus and its facilities to the 100-person UNC Board of Trustees. 10
Macy, first chair of foreign languages. Nearly four years later, the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a gift of 520 acres of land to Charlotte College, enlarging the campus to 917 acres with a goal of achieving 1,500 acres. Following UNC Charlotte’s designation in 1965 as a campus of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, University and elected officials began planning for campus expansion. In 1967, the UNC General Administration and the state legislature provided funding for Dalton Tower to expand the J. Murrey Atkins Library. Additional allocations would fund the Rowe Arts Building, Belk Gymnasium and a cafeteria.
Harvey Murphy, Ph.D., is hired to begin the University’s physical education program. He also serves as interim men’s basketball coach and athletics director; he guides the development of the University’s NCAA Division I sports programs and the Department of Health Promotion and Kinesiology during his 31 years at the institution. The first and only four-year class of Charlotte College graduates on June 6; 25 bachelor’s degrees are awarded, and 11 sophomores receive associate
degrees during commencement exercises in the Atkins Library Auditorium. Marian Anderson, worldrenowned contralto and the first African American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, sang at the ceremony.
