In 1948, Alfonso Elder became the second president of the North Carolina College for Negroes (renamed the North Carolina College at Durham in 1947 and North Carolina Central University in 1969). He served in that position until his retirement in 1963. Correspondence, speeches, notes, and reports on financial audits for North Carolina College for Negroes generated during Alfonso Elder's tenure as president reflect his attempts to establish a policy of shared governance with all the college's constituencies. Correspondence with local educators, artists, the college's faculty and staff, and others concerns conferences and professional organizations, institutional renovations and advancement, and curricula development. Annual reports on financial audits from the North Carolina College for Negroes and later the North Carolina College at Durham pertain to the college's annual capital assets, income, expenses, receipts, disbursements, and salaries and wages. Speeches were delivered before civic organizations, churches, and student groups at North Carolina College at Durham; local high schools in Durham, N.C.; and national associations. Prominent among the speeches is which was delivered at a regional meeting of the National Student Association at Duke University in 1962. In this speech, Elder discussed pressures put on him to curb student involvement in the civil rights movement and his refusal to do so. The Responsibility of the University to Society (With Special Emphasis on Student Involvement in Extra-Class Affairs),
