125 years in the making
It began with a groundbreaking idea: provide an outstanding public educational opportunity for women that would have impact across the state. Make it affordable. Make it outstanding.
This was progressive. Don’t be misled by the sepia tone, the top hats, the corsets. The early leaders, faculty, students and staff were pushing the envelope.
Fact is, this campus community has been looking to the horizon from the very start. We have always strived for something greater, decade after decade – to transform our students and our community, to take creativity to new heights, to recognize and help fulfill the potential in every person, to serve our world. We are teachers and inventors, philosophers and researchers, historians and artists, entrepreneurs and scientists, performers and athletes, Olympians and Spartans.
For more than 125 years, we have been opening doors, breaking down barriers and taking Giant Steps in the pursuit of opportunity and excellence. And we are just getting started.
Early faculty at the State Normal and Industrial School in 1893. On the first row: Viola Boddie and Florence Stone. On the second row: Edith McIntyre, Mary Petty, Dr. Anna M. Gove, Charles Duncan McIver and Lucy H. Robertson. On the third row: E.J. Forney, Maude Broadway, J.Y. Joyner, Melville Fort and P.P. Claxton. On the fourth row: Sue May Kirkland, Dixie Lee Bryant and Gertrude Mendenhall.
Campus Photographs
Campus circa 1893
Campus circa 1920
Campus circa 1970
Campus circa 1995
Did You Know?
The campus began on a 10-acre parcel, on what had been corn fields.
Then & Now
With one building in 1892 housing all campus classes and activities, the school year began with fewer than 200 students. This fall, the number is a hundredfold. The impact these 20,000-plus future alumni will have is great. Tally the ever-increasing number of graduates, year by year, and the impact is staggering.
University Name
1892North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School
1897North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College
1919North Carolina College for Women
1932Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina
1963The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
“Service” has been the campus motto since 1893.