UNCW Watson College of Education History

University Archives serves as the repository for official records of all divisions of the University of North Carolina Wilmington as well as other items related to the history of the University. We collect, preserve, arrange, describe, and make available these materials in accordance with the Records Retention and Dispositions Schedule for Institutions of the University of North Carolina System.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington Board of Trustees is the governing body for the University of North Carolina Wilmington. The UNC Wilmingotn Board of Trustees began operation in 1972. It succeeded the 100-member Board of Trustees of the Consolidated University of North Carolina (1969-1972) and the Wilmington College Board of Trustees (1958-1969). Prior to 1958, the governing body for Wilmington College was the New Hanover County Board of Education. This collection include meeting minutes, committee files, correspondence, clippings, membership rosters, and photographs from 1958 to the present.

This collection consists of administrative files from the Presidents and Chancellors of the institution, including correspondence, reports, installation and inauguration programs, biographical information, and photographs.

The Academic Affairs Collection consists of administrative records pertaining to curricula, institutional research, and supporting academic services at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and its predecessor Wilmington College. A significant part of the collection is from institutional research, consisting of self-studies for accreditation and other reports prepared for planning or assessment.

The Public Service and Continuing Studies Collection contains records pertaining to the administrative history of public service, extended education, and continuing studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington beginning in 1970. Among its activities, the Division worked with the School of Education to offer professional education for teachers and distance and online courses for UNCW students. Additionally, the Division collaborated with K-12 schools to bring high-speed internet to classrooms in Southeast North Carolina.

This collection brings together color and black-and-white prints, slides and negatives, many of which were used in campus publications such as the yearbook, student newspaper, course catalogs, and alumni publications. Topics include athletics, the campus, student life, academics, presidents, and chancellors, from the 1940s through the early 2000s.

This collection consists of original documents, letters, financial records and printed material dealing with the establishment of free public schools in Wilmington, North Carolina after the Civil War. The correspondence details the financial support for school construction, teacher recruitment, and administration provided by the Massachusetts Soldiers Memorial Society, Mary Hemenway, Amy Bradley and the American Unitarian Association for what came to be known as Wilmington School District #2. The focus of the materials in the collection is in Wilmington, North Carolina during the 1860s to the 1900s. While the focus of the collection provides financial and legal details regarding school construction for white children, there is some information on on Williston and Peabody Colored Schools for African American children. Material types include correspondence, receipts, deeds, photographs, reports and contracts.

Dr. William H. Wagoner served as the Superintendent of the New Hanover county school system from 1961-1968, as the fourth President of Wilmington College from 1968-1969 and as the first Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Wilmington from 1969-1990. This collection contains correspondence, publications, newspaper clippings, agendas, photographs, maps and ephemera related to the careers of Dr. Wagoner in Wilmington as well as his personal life.

This collection contains the papers of Bertha Boykin Todd, a long-time New Hanover County educator and community leader. Content focuses on her work with the 1898 Centennial Foundation, biographical information and research for her memoir, "My Restless Journey," speeches and notes for events at which she spoke, recordings of her media appearances, and articles and correspondence related to her community engagement and work with the New Hanover County School system, highlighting her time as the librarian at Williston High School and as an administrator at Hoggard High School.