ECC Timeline

The University of North Carolina was, in fact, the only public university in the state. As the “Consolidated University,” it included State College of Agriculture and Engineering (now N.C. State University) and the College for Women in Greensboro (now UNC-Greensboro). Yet East Carolina was on the rise. Its curriculum was the most diversified outside the Consolidated University. Although its faculty was relatively small, its academic caliber was exceptional, with 65 per cent holding a doctorate.During the 1950s, the college did not move beyond segregation. When legislation was proposed upgrading the teachers college to East Carolina College, supporters cited the confusion prevalent due to the teachers college’s initials, E.C.T.C., being the same as those of Elizabeth City Teachers College, an African American institution. Early on, Governor Kerr Scott mentioned the possible inclusion of East Carolina in the Consolidated University, but also suggested that African American campuses be organized into a consolidated system of their own. The school’s charter was regularly cited as grounds for declining admittance to African American students. This changed during the administration of Messick’s successor, Dr. Leo W. Jenkins. Working with Dr. Andrew Best, a local African American physician, Jenkins orchestrated desegregation of the campus in the early 1960s, avoiding the court orders and conflict that often accompanied the transition elsewhere.

In the 1960s, Jenkins accelerated enrollment growth and oversaw other major transformations of campus culture, academic life, and identity. The student body, 4,000 strong in 1960, had nearly doubled by 1966. This momentum continued throughout the 1960s, making East Carolina the third largest behind UNC and N.C. State. Physical expansion continued, up College Hill with several new dorms, plus a new athletic campus including Ficklen Stadium, Minges Coliseum, a track field, baseball field, and football practice facilities.

Jenkins brought cultural renaissance to the East by recruiting leaders in art, literature, drama, and music. Academic departments multiplied and new schools were founded. The east end of campus, formerly occupied by College Stadium, was redeveloped with academic buildings housing faculty in art, business, the social sciences, music, and education. Jenkins also cultivated awareness of eastern North Carolina as a region, the East, centered in its “service facility,” East Carolina College.

By the mid-1960s, Jenkins launched a campaign to make East Carolina an independent, regional university. This push ran contrary to the “one-university” strategy accepted by most leaders in state education. Jenkins launched this bold drive with the political support of alumnus, trustee, and state senator, Robert Morgan, and virtually all powerbrokers in the East.

The bid generated statewide controversy. Most commentators understood that if successful, it would entail a major reconfiguration of public higher education. After narrow defeat in March 1967, the school’s sixtieth anniversary, backers warned of political consequences, suggesting the East might go Republican due to its betrayal by other state Democrats.

That summer, Senator John Henley of Fayetteville proposed a compromise: a system of regional universities, with East Carolina first among them. Also included were Western Carolina, Appalachian, and A&T in Greensboro. This bill, opposed by Gov. Dan Moore but supported by Lt. Gov. Robert Scott, passed. With it, not only had East Carolina achieved university status, it initiated a revolution in public university life, catapulting the state’s former teachers colleges to the highest level.