ABSTRACT Wescott, Joseph Warren II. A Vision of an Open Door: The Establishment and Expansion of the North Carolina Community College System (Under the Direction of Edgar J. Boone). After World War II, university extension centers and public junior colleges preceded the establishment of noncomprehensive community colleges and industrial education centers in 1957. In the establishment of these institutions and the passage of enabling legislation and funding for the industrial education centers in that year is the earliest beginning of the community college system in North Carolina. The decision to build and maintain these centers grew from the great need for education beyond the high school, a need that was not being met by North Carolina’s public and private colleges and the desire to provide the state with a well-trained workforce to support the new industries being attracted to the state. Throughout their development and operation, the industrial education centers would be at the center of a controversy over how best to accomplish these goals. Yet their success in opening doors of opportunity to the state’s disadvantaged adults and vocationally inclined high school students laid a foundation for the development of a system of comprehensive community colleges in 1963. With the election of a new governor, Terry Sanford, and the passage of the Omnibus Higher Education Act in 1963, the vision of a comprehensive community college system became a reality. The growth of the new system was phenomenal, especially in the turbulent era of the Sixties. The number of colleges doubled and the student population increased over 400 percent from 1963 until 1970. By 1970, the final year in our study, the value of the community college system in providing greater access to higher education for all residents of North Carolina was well established and recognized by the state’s leaders and citizens alike. A VISION OF AN OPEN DOOR: THE ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM by JOSEPH WARREN WESCOTT II Presented to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education HIGHER EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION Raleigh 2005 APPROVED BY: ________________________ ___________________________ ________________________ ___________________________ __________________________ Chair of Advisory Committee ii BIOGRAPHY Joseph Warren Wescott II was born the second child of James W. Wescott and Delores P. Wescott in Bolivia, North Carolina on July 19, 1959. Educated in the public schools of North Carolina, he graduated from South Brunswick High School in 1977. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history with honors from Wake Forest University in 1981 and was enrolled in the graduate program in history on full fellowship from 1982 to 1984. After service as an officer in the United States Army, he entered North Carolina State University where he received a Master of Science degree in higher education administration in 1998. Wescott graduated from Wake Forest University with a Master of Arts in history in 2000. He is employed by Duke University and also serves as the pastor of Town Creek Christian Church. He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta history honor society and Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Listed in Who’s Who in America in 2005 and 2006, as well as Who’s Who in American Education and the National Chancellor’s List in 2006, he currently resides in Durham, North Carolina. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No one writes a dissertation alone. I would like to express my deep appreciation to the following individuals to whom I am especially indebted. First and foremost, I want to thank Dr. Edgar Boone for his continual encouragement and patience while directing this dissertation. Without his unflagging encouragement and example, I would never have completed the task. I remain his devoted disciple. I also wish to thank the other members of my committee, Mr. Martin Lancaster, Dr. Gail O’Brien, Dr. John Pettitt and Dr. George Vaughan for their excellent advice and counsel. I am indebted to Dr. W. Dallas Herring for his vision for the research and Dr. Carol Melton and Dr. Buck Melton for reading and commenting on the manuscript. I am grateful to Dr. Benjamin Fountain, former president of the North Carolina Community College System, for his help in locating surviving legislators who played a role in the expansion of the system and to Mr. Anthony Bevacqua, Dr. William Friday, Governor Jim Holshouser, Mr. Tom Lambeth, Senator William Mills, Mr. Ed Rankin, Mr. John Sanders, Governor Robert Scott, Dr. John Tart and Congressman Tim Valentine for their recollections of the early years of the system’s history. Colonel Ned Delamar, who introduced the 1963 legislation in the North Carolina General Assembly creating the North Carolina system, likewise contributed invaluable memories and advice. I especially wish to acknowledge the assistance of the following individuals and institutions: Dr. Jerry Cashion and the archival staff of the Department of Archives and History in Raleigh; the staff of the Manuscript Collection of the Southern Historical iv Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Special Collections Research Center located in the D. H. Hill Library at North Carolina State University. Dr. W. Dallas Herring, whose vision for the community college system remains undimmed, and Ms. Wanda James, both of whom extended to me generosity and hospitality during several visits to Rose Hill and thus facilitated the final research for and writing of this work, also deserve special thanks. Mr. Bert Hatch and Mrs. Kim Hatch deserve special thanks for their encouragement and support as well. For their continual encouragement throughout my long academic career, I wish to thank my parents, James and Deloris Wescott, who never doubted my ability to finish the study. Above all I want to thank my three children, Rachael, Joseph, and Rose, who are my inspiration and delight. To them, this work is lovingly dedicated. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter INTRODUCTION 1 I. THE VISION AND THE VISIONARIES 5 II. THE HODGES YEARS: LAYING THE FOUNDATION 25 III. THE SANFORD YEARS: OPENING THE DOOR TO A NEW DAY 58 IV. THE MOORE YEARS: MORE NOT LESS 93 V. THE FAR PLATEAU: LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD 115 EPILOGUE 126 LIST OF REFERENCES 130 APPENDICES APPENDIX A – INTERVIEWS 140 Article A – 1 Ned Delemar – NC House Representative 141 Article A – 2 John Sanders – Carlyle Committee Secretary 153 Article A – 3 Tim Valentine – US Congressman 163 Article A – 4 Edward Rankin – Governor Hodges Secretary 183 Article A – 5 Thomas Lambeth – Governor Sanford’s Staff 200 Article A – 6 John Tart – Community College President 213 Article A – 7 Robert Scott – Governor of North Carolina 231 Article A – 8 Benjamin Fountain – System President 275 Article A – 9 James Holshouser – Governor of North Carolina 292 Article A – 10 William Mills – NC State Senator 307 vi Article A – 11 Interview Release Form 312 APPENDIX B – SPEECHES 313 Article B – 1 The Community College System 314 Article B – 2 Speech at North Carolina State 327 vii We have often reminded ourselves and informed other people that we have incalculable undeveloped resources in North Carolina, in our streams, our forests, our mines, our quarries, our soil – that Nature has been most bountiful, so that our undeveloped resources invite men under the pleasantest conditions to productive industry. And so they do. But there is one undeveloped resource more valuable than all these, and that is the people themselves. Walter Hines Page INTRODUCTION Educational analysts and historians, particularly those who have attempted to tell the story of the birth of the community college in the United States, have proposed several theories explaining the motivations behind the establishment of these institutions. Some, such as Zwerling and Park (1974), Pincus (1986, 1994), and Brint and Karabel (1989), have suggested that these schools were a means of tracking students with lower socio-economic status and measured academic ability into terminal vocational and technical programs, or as Brint and Karabel describe it, the bottom track of higher education’s segmented structure of internal stratification. Others such as Dougherty (1994) have argued that the birth and expansion of the community college movement in America can be traced primarily to the promotion of federal, state and local leaders, often to meet the demands of business for a well–trained workforce. However, most scholars agree that these institutions were molded and influenced by the social changes taking place in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, and indeed it was during this period that the community college movement began in North Carolina. The community colleges of North Carolina came into existence during a time of far- reaching social, economic and technological change and expansion. This dissertation examines the community college movement within the state of North Carolina, from the authorization of the first community college study in 1950 until midway the Robert Scott Administration in 1970, the triumph of the progressives in state politics. It examines the establishment and expansion of the community college system within the context of the 2 social, economic and political developments affecting the state. An accurate understanding of the forces for and against the development of this new system is necessary to explain its development. It is my hope that this investigation will shed some light upon the spectrum of political and educational opinion present within the state, while providing a foundation upon which to assess the influence of this new system of education upon the growth and development of a state rapidly pushing its way into the New South. Several forces, from the educational elitists bent on protecting the university from those whom they saw as ill-prepared to industrial leaders seeking to staff their expanding mills, sought to influence, mold and at times, oppose outright the plans for the community college system.