Centennial Exhibit Set to Open

By Nancy McGillicuddy

The latest special collections exhibit focuses on East Carolina University’s transition from a training school for teachers to a four-year college.

The exhibition is at Joyner Library’s Special Collections department and is the second in a four-part series designed to honor ECU’s Centennial.

Curated by graduate student Adrienne Rea, the exhibit is entitled “An Era of Progression — The College Transformation: East Carolina Teachers College” and runs Sept. 15 through Feb. 15.

Cases will display photographs, drawings, blueprints and other artifacts that illuminate this period of growth and expansion on campus.

“The exhibit shows the evolution of a two-year training school into a four year college not only administratively and physically, but also the greater diversity of activities available to a growing student body,” said Suellyn Lathrop, university archivist. “The students really came into their own during the 1920s organizing the Student Government Association which truly participated in the governance of the college with the full support of President Robert Wright.”

The final exhibits in the centennial series examine how East Carolina transformed from East Carolina Teachers College to East Carolina College to East Carolina University.

Special Collections is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information about this exhibit or Special Collections, call 252-328-6671, or visit http://www.ecu.edu/lib/spclcoll/.