Alumnus & DC Chapter Member
Participants in Charter Day Ceremony

Timothy McIntosh of Mitchellville, Md

DURHAM, NC - As an undergraduate at N.C. Central University half a century ago, Timothy McIntosh had an entire campus counting on him.

McIntosh was the campus bell-ringer. Five times a day, seven days a week, for four years, McIntosh would pull the rope on the old bell that stands in the center of campus, signaling to students that it was time to wake, eat or go to class.

For that, he earned $60 a month.

"It was a good job; it got me through college," McIntosh said Tuesday. "That was my main source of income."

McIntosh came to NCCU from Wilson, where he grew up. He studied mathematics and went on to a career doing civilian financial work for the Army.

Now 69, retired and living in Maryland, McIntosh was among scores of proud NCCU alumni who returned to campus this week to commemorate their alma mater's Charter Day, the 100th anniversary of its incorporation.

McIntosh kicked off the event -- and a year of planned activities celebrating NCCU's centennial -- with one more ring of the bell.

"At six in the morning, he was none too popular with the folks in the residence halls nearest the bell," quipped NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who presided Tuesday and spoke at length of the importance that bell played in the life of the campus.

NCCU founder James Shepard had a particular fondness for the bell, old-timers recounted Tuesday. He disliked tardiness and wanted everyone in class on time.

"The community depended on this bell for the correct time; they set their watches by it," said alumnus Robert Lawson, the longtime university photographer. "If we won a game, they'd ring it, too. You knew if we lost a football game because the bell didn't sound."

The event Tuesday also included speeches and proclamations from local dignitaries as well as a re-enactment of the signing of the charter. The role-playing was done by descendants of many of the original signers.

In its century of life, NCCU has had a few name changes and a couple of different missions. It was conceived by Shepard and a small group of Durham businessmen who wanted a religious school for blacks. So at its founding, the institution was called the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race.

The school relied on donations, which waned when World War I arrived. It couldn't pay its bills and was eventually turned over to the state, which in 1923 turned it into a teacher training school for blacks. Shepard became its principal.

But two years later, Shepard lobbied and received state money to turn it into a liberal arts college, and it became the North Carolina College for Negroes, the nation's first liberal arts college for blacks.

Dudley Flood, an alumnus, career educator and member of the UNC system's Board of Governors, recalled that along with the academic education he received while a student at NCCU, he learned some lessons about life -- how to speak, dress and carry himself properly.

"We didn't have a written dress code, ... but if you didn't have a coat and a necktie [during meals], you didn't eat. We were taught decorum," he told a rapt audience at B.N. Duke Auditorium. "I will tell you right now, it matters how you present yourself."

NCCU has centennial events planned throughout the next year, culminating in the spring with an academic symposium examining the future of historically black colleges and universities. With state budget cuts looming, university administrators and alumni association officials plan to lean heavily on