A Growing Student Body

Racial integration occurred during this time, a largely peaceful and orderly process. NC State students reacted to the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in at Greensboro in 1960, when the Student Government called for the integration of surrounding Raleigh landlords and public facilities. Chancellor Caldwell and the Faculty Senate supported resolution.[1]  The Student Government formed a Human Relations Committee to reach out to local businesses, and fought for integration in Raleigh for three years. In 1963, Baxley’s restaurant on Hillsborough Street began serving African Americans and many others near the university followed suite. Off-campus housing for African American students was an even longer struggle, prompting the foundation of DARE (Direct Action for Racial Equality) by graduate students. The issue escalated when a UN delegate from Liberia was denied service in downtown Raleigh, provoking outraged articles from the The Technician. The number of African American students at NC State in the 1960s was small, but integration resulted in some of the first student-organized demonstrations on campus, notably after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. [2]

Likewise, the number of female students at NC State in the early 1960s when Caldwell took office was trifling. Erdahl Cloyd student center opened a new “coed” lounge in 1963 after women’s enrollment reached at grand total of 308. The very next year, enrollment of female students at NC State doubled to over six hundred after the establishment of the School of Liberal Arts.  Watauga Hall was renovated as a dormitory for women, which became the required residence for undergraduate single women.

The makeup of the student body was changing rapidly as enrollment continued to increase throughout the 1960s, and so too did student politics.