James Leloudis receives Thomas Jefferson award

In the 52 years since he first came to UNC-Chapel Hill, James L. Leloudis ’77, ’89 (PhD) has left an imprint here and beyond. He teaches and writes about Southern history, co-chairs (with professor Pat Parker) the University Commission of History, Race and a Way Forward and directs the nationally renowned Honors Carolina program.

But it was his “work to protect voting rights, his deep commitment to public service and his tenacious pursuit of knowledge” for which Mara Evans, Honors Carolina assistant dean and STEM teaching associate professor in biology, nominated Leloudis for one of Faculty Council’s highest honors.

“I think that a recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award should not only be a scholar but also leave behind a legacy of fortifying the pursuit of knowledge by creating lasting institutional structures to nurture others and their pursuits of knowledge,” Evans said at the Sept. 5 award presentation. “His vision and dedication have paved the way for generations of students to come here and go anywhere.”

In accepting the honor, Leloudis first thanked his colleagues, mentors, friends and family. Then, ever the scholar of the post-emancipation South, he gave a mini history lesson on Carolina as “the University of the people.” Gov. William Holden first used the phrase “the people’s university” in an 1869 Commencement speech, he said, urging “a new course”: to open Carolina’s doors to young men who were poor and those recently freed from enslavement. But two years later, Holden was impeached and his “unfinished project is the defining challenge of our historical moment.”

Leloudis meets the challenge with classes like The South Since Reconstruction, books like “Fragile Democracy: The Struggle Over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina” and testimony as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in state and federal court cases involving race and voting rights in North Carolina. “It’s an opportunity to try to put scholarship to work in the world in ways that are meaningful for people who will never step foot on this campus,” he said.

Coming to Carolina

When Leloudis set foot on campus in 1973, he immediately began two lifelong relationships, with the school and his future wife, Dianne Hall ’77, ’84 (MSN). “I met her during the first week of class and fell in love with her and the University at the same time,” he said.

The 18-year-old planned to major in chemistry and become a doctor. Then Leloudis “wandered into” a history class. Guided by some “extraordinary” teachers and mentors, he switched his major to history. “They helped me understand the power of historical scholarship to expand our imagination about what is possible today and in the future.”

Leloudis got his master’s degree in history from Northwestern University in 1979, then returned for doctoral studies at Carolina, joining the faculty in 1989. One early project was “Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World,” a 1987 history of the cotton textile industry in the South written in collaboration with Jacquelyn Hall, director of the Southern Oral History Program, and four fellow graduate students. The book won several awards, but Leloudis described the response outside the academy as even more gratifying. “We heard from so many people who said, ‘This is my family’s story that I’ve never really fully understood.’”

In 1999, Leloudis expanded his role in the University’s administration as the founding director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence and the Peter T. Grauer Associate Dean for Honors Carolina in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. His leadership and fundraising skills enabled the program to endow 15 new faculty positions and double the number of students it accepts.

Reckoning with history

Leloudis has also led in reckoning with the University’s history. Based on information he gathered and presented, the University’s Board of Trustees in 2020 voted to remove four names from campus buildings, and to rename two of those buildings for Henry Owl, the first American Indian and first person of color to graduate from the University, and Hortense McClinton, the first Black faculty member at Carolina.