Myth: Greenlaw Hall was built as a bomb shelter or a safe haven for faculty during potential student unrest.
Because Little, Lee and Associates Architects designed Greenlaw Hall in the mid-1960s -- in the heat of the Cold War and Vietnam protests -- many have speculated that the squat, concrete building with narrow slits for windows was intended as a shelter for violent times.
"I've heard that the windows are intentionally narrow to keep anyone from breaking in," said Powell.
But Joseph Flora, a professor in the Department of English since 1962, said he thinks it is a myth that Greenlaw was meant for anything other than classrooms.
Affirming Flora's opinion, Bill Little, president of Little and Associates Architects, Inc. -- formerly Little, Lee and Associates -- said, "(It) was never conceived to be a bomb shelter or anything else."
Fact: Monkeys have been used for experimentation in the basement of Davie Hall.
For years, students have suspected the existence of monkeys in the laboratories of Davie Hall.
Their suspicions were warranted.
But before you begin arming yourself for a "Campus of the Apes," it should be mentioned that primate research is common at universities across the country. Furthermore, the primates being used at UNC are new world primates called squirrel monkeys, who stand only a foot tall. Their tails measure nearly as long as their bodies.
No primates have been housed in Davie Hall, however, since the spring of 2001. Linda Dykstra, a William Rand Kenan Jr. professor in the departments of Psychology and Pharmacology and dean of the graduate school, discontinued the use of a 25-year-old primate colony housed in Davie Hall more than a year ago.
Dykstra used primates and rats in a research program designed to investigate the behavioral and pharmacological variables influencing a drug's effect. The program was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
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Dykstra said she stopped using primates because they were no longer necessary to her research.
"In a sense, we had completed most of the studies that we had set out to do, and I became interested in ... questions (that) could be addressed with rats and mice. The decision to phase out the colony was not due to concerns about working with primates but rather to a shift in the direction of my own research interests," she wrote in an e-mail.
Dykstra called the primate colony "state-of-the-art" in animal housing and care. The monkeys were paired in large, open cages positioned within view of neighboring monkeys. The primates also were handled daily, provided with enrichment activities and allotted time to watch television -- although Dykstra said they were decidedly not interested.
During its existence, the colony operated in a state of continual change. Old primates were retired and new ones introduced.
"What happens to a monkey once an experiment is over depends on the nature of the experiment. There are regulations about how many times an animal can be used for experiments," Dykstra said.
After Davie's colony was phased out, three of the remaining monkeys were transferred to the UNC School of Medicine, where they were used in an investigation of brain function.
Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, said none of the original monkeys from Davie Hall remain on campus.
"The animals (were) sacrificed at the end of the experiment ... to perform histological evaluations of the brain," he wrote in an e-mail.
Although monkeys are no longer found in Davie Hall, Dwight Bellinger, director of animal laboratory research, said one UNC medical researcher still uses squirrel monkeys.
Fact: Ackland Art Museum was originally intended for Duke University, not UNC.
William Hayes Ackland's last will and testament indicated his desire to fund an art museum in the South. He specified the museum should house his body and a statue of his likeness.
What he did not make clear was the exact location of such a museum. His first choice was Duke University, which Ackland considered "the Harvard of the South."
But Duke refused to accept the museum because of Ackland's stipulation that he be entombed there.
At that time, Duke trustees did not wish anyone other than the three members of the Duke family to be interred on campus.
This left Ackland's other preferences, UNC and Rollins College in Florida, vying for the gift.
After a nine-year court battle, UNC, represented by the legal team of John E. Larson, Frank Porter Graham and O. Max Gardner, won the case.
William Hayes Ackland now rests in blue heaven, in an art museum bearing his name on South Columbia Street, in a sarcophagus below a bronze statue of his likeness.
But where Ackland's remains are located has become a myth within a myth. Andy Berner, the Ackland's assistant director of communications, points to the questions surrounding the location of Ackland's remains until they reached Chapel Hill.
"Ackland (Art Museum) was built in 1958, 18 years after his death. He was entombed in 1958, but he died in 1940, so no one really knows where he was for those 18 years," Berner said. "There are rumors that he's not even in the sarcophagus, that he was buried in the front yard, but I'm sure someone with as much money as Mr. Ackland would have been properly taken care of."
Fact: Morehead Planetarium houses a secret apartment where famous dignitaries and celebrities stay during visits to Chapel Hill.
A $3 million expansion to the Morehead Planetarium, completed in 1973, added offices and a 400-seat banquet hall to the first floor. The second floor annex included a lounge, living room, boardroom and a group of private apartments known as the Morehead House.
Chuck Lovelace, executive director of the John Motley Morehead Foundation, said the rooms are reserved for distinguished guests to the University such as candidates for top faculty positions, Commencement speakers and guest lecturers.
"Essentially, it's a discreet and secure place for them to stay," he said.
Dignitaries and celebrities alike have stayed in Morehead House. The more prominent of these include journalist David Brinkley, media mogul Ted Turner, actress Jane Fonda and best-selling author Tom Wolfe, in addition to presidential candidates and several foreign ambassadors.
Lovelace refuted the rumor that Michael Jordan uses the apartments but acknowledged that his relatives were guests in the Morehead House during their visit to dedicate the Jordan Institute of Families.
"I don't know where (Michael) stays when he comes to town," Lovelace said.
Myth: Walking on the grass in McCorkle Place is a violation of the Honor Code.
On sunny spring afternoons, the many students throwing Frisbees or relaxing in the grass of McCorkle Place need not worry about a summons from the Honor Court.
Former Student Attorney General Brad Newcomb said any rumors that treading on McCorkle Place constitutes an Honor Code violation are probably due to a tenet in the Honor Code prohibiting "misuse of university property."
"Unless someone's tearing the ground up with a shovel, though, it wouldn't be a violation of our Honor Code," he said.
"I think it's a benefit that we have grass ... so I say: Sit in the grass and roll in the grass and enjoy it."
Jason Luck, a former president of the Dialectic Society, said the misconception might stem from a rule enforced by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
In the 19th century, when the administration desired to maintain the meticulous landscaping of McCorkle Place, the leaders of Di Phi agreed to fine members who veered from the sidewalk.
Though the statute is more than 100 years old, Luck said Di Phi still enforced the rule while he was a member.
"I was fined the sum of $10 for setting foot on the sacred grass, a fine which I overturned when I became president a few days later," he said.
But the McCorkle Place myth might also have roots in the fact that the upper quad serves as the grave site for one of the University's founding fathers.
Joseph Caldwell, the first president of the University; his wife, Helen Caldwell; and his stepson William Hooper are buried just yards from Davie Poplar. When Caldwell died in January of 1835, he was buried in the Chapel Hill village cemetery. The following November, the Phi Society had his body exhumed to cast a death mask of his features.
In 1846, he was disinterred again and buried next to his wife under a sandstone monument near the present-day site of New West.
In July of 1904, Caldwell was disinterred for the last time. He was re-interred with his wife and stepson at the base of a new marble monument erected in their honor in McCorkle Place.
