UNC Charlotte Gets Greek Village

Greek Village key social addition
Matt Collins

A new home for UNC Charlotte's Greek Life is currently being built behind Hawthorne Hall, and could start housing students as soon as Fall 2007. The Greek Village, as it is called, is a needed addition to campus.

The new Greek Village is a good idea, as it centralizes where the sororities and fraternities of UNCC will be, and it will bring their members even closer together than they already are.

One could argue that the millions of dollars being spent to relocate fraternity and sorority houses is millions of dollars that could have been spent on bringing more professors and programs, like more Doctorate's, to our school.

Or one could argue that those millions of dollars could have been put toward scholarships or financial assistance, since last year around 13,000 students, or about 53% of the student body, required assistance. To their credit, they did issue over $100 million last year.

But this is about more than dollars, it is about vision, it's about looking to the future, the future of UNCC and the community as a whole. Chancellor Philip Dubois has a vision for this school and it is ambitious to say the least, being far too through to get into in this article. The Greek Village, along with the new shuttle service, the light rail and the Charlotte Research Institute, amongst other things, show this guy has plans. Plans that we stand to benefit from.

It's also about appearance. UNCC currently is primarily a commuter campus, where over 60% of students are non-residents. We're located in a state that has some of the highest rated and most popular higher learning institutions in the world, and UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke are all primarily residential campuses, with thriving residential student populations.

We're trying to become more like that kind of school, and the Greek Village is an attempt to do that. It's a valiant attempt that, along with the other upcoming additions (light rail, etc.), will make us more like the other schools, and will attract more out-of-town students that would live on campus.It's also about creating a centralized Greek area, to put like-minded people in the same place. It will strengthen the social structure of our school, which is key. This fact in itself is why we should support the Greek Village.