In 1989, Hall was named Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her time at UNC, she served as advisor and mentor to many graduate students, a number of whom went on to distinguished scholarly careers and to leadership positions in oral history and public history endeavors. She served as director of the Southern Oral History Program until 2011. During her tenure, the SOHP collected over 5000 interviews on the history of the American South, covering topics such as industrialization, the long civil rights movement, women's history, and Southern politics. She also served as Mark W. Clark Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the Citadel (2015), Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology (1995), director of the Duke University–University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women (1991–1994), and Ford Foundation Professor at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi (1987).
