Thanks to our partners at Central Piedmont Community College, we now have five new scrapbooks from the school, spanning 1957-1992. This wide-ranging collection covers the practical nursing program, Phi Theta Kappa, the Student National Education Association, and the “Seminars on Asian Understanding” organized by Willimore “Cy” Hastings in 1971-1972. These scrapbooks include a diverse assortment of formats that give insight into the activities of CPCC students and faculty, and their interactions with the greater Charlotte community — and the world — over the course of nearly forty years.

The Seminars on Asian Understanding is a particularly interesting look at CPCC’s engagement with global politics and its efforts to foster cross-cultural communication. The series hosted American foreign policy experts and ambassadors from Vietnam, China, Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia. Newspaper clippings and correspondence reveal Hasting’s work to organize the talks and public interest in the program, which drew attendees from the CPCC community and beyond.

See the rest of our Central Piedmont Community College materials here and our North Carolina Community College digital exhibit here.