Center director Harry Watson and key donors Spencie Love and Marguerite Hutchins unveil the sign announcing the Center's new home.

Future home for Southern studies celebrated at UNC event
On Thursday, June 15, donors and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill representatives celebrated the beginning of the renovation of the historic Love House and construction of an addition, the Hutchins Forum, as the new home for Carolina’s Center for the Study of the American South. The house is located at 410 East Franklin St.

The resulting Love House and Hutchins Forum, scheduled to open in April 2007, is expected to facilitate the university’s longtime role as the world’s leading institution for research, teaching and public dialogue on the history, culture and contemporary experience of the South. Renovation and expansion of the Love House and Hutchins Forum have been made possible by Mr. Glenn H. Hutchins, by the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation, and by other private benefactors.

Chancellor James Moeser, center director Dr. Harry Watson, and key donors Marguerite Hutchins and Spencie Love spoke at the event. Mrs. Hutchins is the widow of addition namesake James A. Hutchins Jr., and Dr. Love is the great-granddaughter of activist and house resident Cornelia Phillips Spencer. UNC President Erskine Bowles also attended the event.

Refreshments and a house tour, guided by UNC historic preservation specialist Paul Kapp and Chapel Hill architect John Hawkins, followed the talks.

Carolina mathematics professor James Lee Love and his wife, June Spencer Love, built the house in 1887 for themselves and her mother, Cornelia Phillips Spencer.
Spencer is known for ringing the South Building bell upon news in 1875 that the university would reopen after Reconstruction.

The Hutchins Forum will honor the late James a. Hutchins Jr., a student of the late sociologist Howard Odum, who pioneered UNC’s excellence in Southern studies when he came to Carolina in 1920. Hutchins applied Odum’s lessons in rural economic development around the world from the 1950s to 1970s in his work as an adviser to U.S. embassies.

The center, now operating out of six small offices in Hamilton Hall, was founded in 1992 to enhance and continue the university’s leadership in Southern studies.