Department History
Entrance to Murphey Hall (July 2009, L. de Jong)
Part 1. From the Beginnings to the Post-Civil War Closing in 1871.
On January 10, 1794, a year before The University of North Carolina opened its doors, the University’s Board of Trustees met to establish policies and programs for the new institution. One of their items of business was to set the courses of study and tuition for each. Among the courses they decided upon were “Latin, Greek, French, English Grammar, Geography, History and Belles Lettres,” at $12.50 per annum. Latin and Greek have thus been a central part of the University’s curriculum from its very inception, although not the most expensive: Geometry, Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, and other science courses were also offered, at a cost of $15.00 per year.
William R. Davie laying the cornerstone of East Building, 12 October 1793, reproduced from the 1935 edition of The Yackety Yack
For many years after the first student, Hinton James, arrived in February of 1795, both the number of faculty and the number of students was small, and professors and tutors were expected to teach a wide range of subjects, from the languages to the sciences. Among the early faculty who specialized in the ancient languages were Archibald DeBow Murphey, after whom Murphey Hall is named, and William Hooper, who graduated from the University in 1809, was awarded an AM in 1812, and taught Latin and Greek from 1817 to 1822 and 1827 to 1837.
Archibald Debow Murphey (1777-1832)
It is not until 1838 that we find the appointments of separate professors of Latin and Greek: J. DeBerniere Hooper, who taught Latin from 1838 to 1847 and Greek from 1875 to 1884, and, in Greek, Manuel Fetter (1838-1868). Although we hear of a few Master of Arts degrees being conferred in these first eighty years, it is clear that in the period before and during the Civil War the University was above all an undergraduate school, and a practical-minded one at that: agriculture and mining were among its offerings. Much of the teaching in this period was in the hands of tutors, who were usually recent graduates of the University who taught for a year or two and then moved on.
Part 2. From the Reopening of the University in 1875 to the 1920s: the Establishment of a Modern Research University.
The University closed entirely from 1871 to 1875 during Reconstruction, but when it reopened it entered a period of expansion, and of transformation into a modern research university, that lasted some fifty years. The Department of Classics evolved along with the institution as a whole. The University announced the formation of a “graduate department” (an early forerunner of the Graduate School) in the late 1870’s, and the first post-Civil War graduate degrees were awarded soon thereafter, in 1883. The earliest graduate degrees in ancient studies that we have been able to find so far are an M.A. by Samuel Bryant Turrentine in 1884 (thesis: “Affiliation of Roman and Greek History;” this does not seem to be extant and may have been done in the History Department) and a Ph.D. by Thomas James Wilson (“The Genitive of Quality and the Ablative of Quality in Latin,” 1898). A real graduate program in Classics, with substantial numbers of graduate students, did not begin, however, until the 1920s.
The arrival of Eben Alexander from the University of Tennessee in 1886 was an important moment for ancient studies in Chapel Hill, for during his time as Professor of Greek at Chapel Hill (1886-1893 and 1897-1909) Alexander taught ancient Greek, served as the University’s first Dean of Faculty, and for many years supervised the University library. It was in this period that the University acquired its first purpose-built library, the Carnegie library now known as Hill Hall, and Alexander also served on the committee that brought to Chapel Hill the young librarian Louis Round Wilson, who developed the library into one of the South’s premier research facilities.
One of Alexander’s students was William Stanley Bernard, who joined the faculty as instructor in Greek in 1901, was promoted to professor in 1920, and continued to teach Greek until his death in 1938. Bernard, himself a memorable character, was joined by George Howe (1903 to 1935) and Gustavus Adolphus Harrer, both Latinists. Harrer, a Princeton PhD, came to Chapel Hill in 1915, taught Latin, including Latin epigraphy, and was awarded a Kenan Professorship in 1934. James Penrose Harland (like Harrer a Princeton PhD) came to Chapel Hill in 1922 as the Department’s first archaeologist and by 1929 had been promoted to full professor. He traveled widely in Greece, excavated on Aegina, and developed a large collection of lantern slides illustrating the classical world and its art.
J.P. Harland in the classroom (North Carolina Collection, UNC)
Meanwhile, the department acquired a new and, as it turned out, permanent home: the construction of Murphey Hall, which was designed to house language and literature departments, was begun in 1922 and completed in 1924. John Nolen, the first planner called to the University during World War I, first set out a plan of extending the original campus southwards beyond South Building. Work began with the architecture and construction of the Eastern Arm of South Campus: Saunders, Manning, and Murphey Halls.
New classroom buildings of the 1920s: Saunders (left), Manning (center), and Murphey (right)
Thus, by the mid-1920s, the Department of Classics had the faculty and facilities to develop a strong graduate program: there was a core of four outstanding faculty (augmented by others who served for shorter terms or as visitors), a modern new teaching facility, and, from 1929, the new Wilson Library, just a few seconds’ walk from Murphey Hall. Chapel Hill rapidly became one of the most important centers of research and graduate study in the South, and the department’s collection of theses and dissertations, which begins in the 1920s, can serve as an accurate reflection of this new direction and role.
Library in Old Murphey Hall (2001, D. Haggis)
Classroom in Old Murphey Hall (2001, D. Haggis)
Murphey Hall Statue of Aphrodite of Melos
Part 3. From the 1920s to the 1960s: The Foundations of the Modern Department and Berthold Ullman.
In the 1930s, the Classics Department continued its basic mission of teaching Latin, Greek, and Classical Archaeology to undergraduates and a small number of graduate students. Howe continued as chairman and professor of Latin until 1936, Harrer until 1943, Bernard to 1937, and Harland until 1963. A more active period — effectively a new department — began when Berthold Ullman became Kenan professor and chairman of the department in 1944. Ullman was a dynamic presence, even beyond his retirement in 1959. A distinguished scholar of medieval and renaissance palaeography and manuscript traditions, he also co-authored an extremely successful Latin high school textbook series. He encouraged the study of Latin both at the university and in the secondary schools of North Carolina. Preston H. Epps, who had taken the Greek chair in 1943, became Kenan professor in 1955. Under Ullman’s leadership, the department expanded with the addition of Walter Allen in Latin (1945) and Henry Immerwahr in Greek (1957). In addition, there were increasingly close links with other departments. Wallace Caldwell, for example, was made professor of Ancient History in 1930 and continued in that position until 1945.
Prof. Robert J. Getty (1908-63) teaches students in classics (William S. Powell, The First State University 1972, p. 270)
In 1958, Robert J. Getty, a Scot and a highly respected scholar on Lucan, was invited from Canada to become the first Paddison professor of Latin and chairman of the department. His successor as chairman (1959-65) was Albert I. Suskin, a North Carolinian who attended UNC as both an undergraduate and graduate student and taught in the department from 1936 until 1965, except for his period of service in the Army (1942 to 1945). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the department under Suskin’s leadership made many new appointments: Charles Henderson, Kenneth J. Reckford in 1960, Hubert Martin and Edwin L. Brown in 1961, and Philip A. Stadter in 1962.
The Kenneth Reckford production of Plautus’ Curculio (with the young Cecil Wooten on the left)
Prof. Berthe Marti joined the department in 1963, taking early retirement from Bryn Mawr to assume a half-time professorship of classical and medieval Latin. She continued and strengthened the program in medieval studies, adding a doctoral degree in that area. Also in these years, the department was chosen to be the first American office of l’Année Philologique, an indication of its increasing international visibility.
Establishment of the American office of L'Année Philologique, 1965 (W.W. de Grummond, Juliette Ernst, T.R.S. Broughton)
In 1965, T. Robert S. Broughton succeeded Getty, who had died in the fall of 1963, as Paddison professor of Latin. He set up the University Library’s special study room for epigraphy and palaeography, established the Ph.D. program in Classics with Historical Emphasis, and encouraged close cooperation with the Department of History, and in particular with the Roman Historian Henry C. Boren. When Albert Suskin died in office as Classics chair in 1965, Henry R. Immerwahr served as interim chair for 1965-66 and oversaw the search that brought George A. Kennedy to Chapel Hill to take over as chair.
Profs. McCoy, Stadter, Kennedy and Immerwahr at the presentation of the first copy of P.A. Stadter (ed.) The Speeches in Thucydides, 1973
Part 4. From 1966 to the Present: George A. Kennedy and Beyond
The University expanded from some 10,500 students in 1963 to over 20,000 in the following decade, and the Department of Classics expanded along with it. Two new professors, Emeline Hill Richardson in Classics and Sara Immerwahr in Art, jointly directed a new doctoral program in Classical Archaeology. Two new Paddison Professors were named, Brooks Otis in Latin and Douglas C. C. Young in Greek. The department introduced new graduate courses on Greek palaeography alongside those on Latin scripts. On the undergraduate level there was an extensive expansion of the curriculum. Under Kennedy’s tenure the department thus expanded its curriculum and expertise.
George A. Kennedy
Along with the University as a whole, the Classics department turned to fund-raising in a serious way in the mid-1990s, and in the past decade it has established several substantial endowed funds in support of both undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. These are in addition to the Paddison Fund, which was created in the 1950s and now provides at any one time for two or three distinguished professorships and contributes a substantial amount to the University’s research library; the Cassas Fund, which supports the Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek Studies; and the Kenan Eminent Professorship of Classics, supported by the University’s William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.
In 2001 and 2002 Murphey Hall underwent a multi-million dollar renovation and restoration project, including the state-of-the-art library and Archaeology Seminar Room.
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The Bibliotheca Ullmaniana (March 2009, E. Baragwanath)
The Archaeology Seminar Room
The Archaeology Room with Crist Collection on display (D. Haggis)
The Archaeology Seminar Room (Murphey Hall 220) houses the antiquities collection of the Department of Classics. The collection consists of some 130 whole objects and hundreds of potsherds, lithics, glass, and fragmentary artifacts, representing a number of cultures and periods in the Aegean, Cyprus, Egypt, Anatolia and the ancient Near East. The assemblage was derived from private donors, former UNC faculty, and other scholars associated with the Department: William Dale, James P. Harland, Berthe Marti, Eben Alexander, and Henry and Sarah Immerwahr. Special collections include the Frederick Oswin Waagé III Antioch collection, consisting of Hellenistic and Roman lamps and table wares from excavations at Antioch on the Orontes in Syria; and the Takey Crist Collection of Cypriot antiquities. The Classics antiquities collections comprise an important teaching tool for a variety of graduate and undergraduate seminars in ancient art and classical and Mediterranean archaeology.
The Crist Collection
A Duke Archaeology graduate student, Elizabeth Baltes, studies a Cypro‐Phoenician Bichrome (IV) Ware jug (Cypro‐Archaic I‐II; 750‐480 B.C.) from the Crist Collection. (D. Haggis)
Dr. Takey Crist, a UNC alumnus and founder of the Crist Clinic for Women in Jacksonville, N.C., in 2008, donated to the Department of Classics a collection of rare books on Cypriot, Greek, and eastern Mediterranean history and archaeology; and a unique assemblage of Cypriot antiquities. The rare books are now housed in the Rare Books department of Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC.
The collection of antiquities consists of 40 artifacts, mostly pottery and sculpture, representing nearly 2000 years of Cypriot history from the Early Bronze Age to the Classical period (late 3rd millennium B.C. to ca. 500 B.C.). The permanent home for the Crist Collection is the Archaeology Seminar Room of the Classics department in Murphey Hall, where the artifacts are displayed for public view and used for teaching and hands-on training in undergraduate and graduate seminars in archaeology. The Classics department is grateful to Dr. Crist for this gift to UNC’s archaeology program, and for his continuing support of Greek studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Crist received his B.A. in Philosophy (1959) and M.D. (1965) from UNC. His interest in Greek archaeology stems from his Cypriot parentage, and his life-long study of Greek and Cypriot history and culture. Dr. Crist was a student of James P. Harland, who was the first classical archeologist at UNC (hired in 1922) and a distinguished world-renowned Greek archaeologist and Aegean prehistorian.
For more information on the Christ Collection contact:
Donald Haggis, Department of Classics (919-951-8197
Professor of Classical Archaeology
Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek Studies
dchaggis@email.unc.edu
Personal and Curriculum
In terms of personnel and curriculum, the Department has developed in a number of directions. The addition in the late 1960s of Emeline Hill Richardson, G. Kenneth Sams, and Gerhard Koeppel in Classics, as well as of Sara Immerwahr in Art, created for the first time a substantial core of archaeology faculty. Since the 1960s the archaeology faculty has conducted fieldwork in the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Berthold Ullman had long ago provided a first impetus to post-classical studies, and the Department has maintained that interest through appointments in medieval and Byzantine studies, palaeography, and (on a smaller scale) modern Greek. In 1999, the Department created a Post-Baccalaureate program which provides a flexible course of study for students who want to improve their skills either for their own education or as preparation for graduate work. Since 2003, the Department has played a leading role in developing an exchange program with King’s College London, the “UNC-King’s Strategic Alliance,” which provides opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to study and collaborate with their peers at King’s College London. The department has also been actively involved in the creation of an Archaeology Major and Minor, which started in 2008 and is organized through the Curriculum in Archaeology. The Duke -UNC Consortium for Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology, a close collaboration between Mediterranean archaeologists at both institutions, offers further possibilities for interdisciplinary dialogues. This consortium also offers students access to seminars, excavations, and other research opportunities, as well as academic advising at both universities.
The Classics Department now boasts 15 full-time faculty members, as well as several part-time instructors and 12 adjuncts in the departments of Art, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Comparative Literature, and Anthropology. In 2007 and 2008 the department hired five new full-time faculty members. Current course offerings — in Classical Archaeology, Classical Civilization, Greek, and Latin — present a diversity of perspectives on and approaches to the ancient world, catering to various majors and degrees, as well as undergraduate, post-baccalaureate, and graduate education.
The Azoria Project
Since 2001 Donald Haggis has organized a field school at Azoria on Crete. The Azoria Project is a case study of urbanization in the Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C., exploring the Early Iron Age and Archaic town of Azoria (ca. 1200-500 B.C.) on the island of Crete in the Greek Aegean. The goal is to examine changing dynamics of extra-island trade, crop and livestock processing, and local subsistence practices on this site, and to relate these changes to social processes involved in the formation of small-scale polities in the eastern Mediterranean during the first millennium B.C. The project is sponsored by UNC and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Murphey Hall (January 2009, E. Baragwanath)
Murphey Hall (April 2008, E. Baragwanath)