Activists and Authorities: A Chancellor's Place on a Campus in Protest

A look into the role North Carolina State University's chancellor, John Caldwell, played during the campus's 1970 protests following the shootings at Kent State University. The transformation of State College to NC State University, along with the write-in election of Cathy Sterling as student body president, created an environment ripe for the Peace Retreat, which allowed students on both sides of the fence of the Vietnam War to speak together and voice their opinions. Caldwell represented a new tide of educators who welcomed an age of student-faculty cooperation in creating a better, more relevant educational environment at NC State and across the country, and as such, helped contribute to making the campus a good environment to facilitate peaceful political discussions.

The two section headings in this exhibit are lyrics taken from the Canned Heat 1970 song "Let's Work Together", written by Wilbert Harrison. The song's lyrics exemplify the activist environment of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

This exhibit is part of a larger project detailing how State College became NC State University and how that, along with Chancellor Caldwell's administration, created an environment on the campus that was favorable to the election of Cathy Sterling and the subsequent occurence of the Peace Retreat in response to the Vietnam War. To see more about this project, visit Activists and Authorities.