The facility supports rental and recreational services for about 1,000 people per year. The programs are led by a combination of students and professional guides.
Junior Nicole Paige said the athletic activities and student organizations are a major aspect of campus life for students.
“It strengthens you socially because it makes college less stressful,” she said. “It also gives you an opportunity to meet people in your same situation.”
Said Tvedt, “We have some folks who are internationally competitive in white-water rafting. Students who like mountain activities obviously will be comfortable in this environment.”
Paige, an elementary education major, said she chose Western Carolina because of its social connections as well as its academic reputation.
“I had a lot of friends up here already,” she said. “But I also heard about how great the education department was up here — one of the best in the nation.”
Paige said the university works to make sure students feel connected to one another by offering activities during the first week of school, such as Valley Ballyhoo. The equivalent of Fall Fest at UNC-Chapel Hill, the event draws local businesses and offers students the opportunity to mingle and get free gifts.
“There is a great sense of community,” Paige said.
She added that students do “normal college stuff,” and that there are plenty of family-owned restaurants in the area students frequent.
And since the school is less than an hour’s drive from Asheville, many students feel both removed from city life and connected to the outside world.
Time to expand
Western Carolina is growing in multiple directions, with an unprecedented enrollment boom and multiple construction and renovation projects under way.
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Since 2002, the university has experienced a 31 percent rise in freshman enrollment, with 1,600 more students enrolling in August 2004 than the year before.
To accommodate the growth, the university will take advantage of the $98.4 million received during the 2000 higher education bond referendum.
The university announced plans Feb. 18 for a major extension that will use 344 acres of neighboring land, more than doubling the campus’s size. The money for the land — $2.87 million — also came from the 2000 bond referendum.
A total of $130 million in construction and renovations is expected to transform WCU into a high-tech and cutting-edge university.
Part of that money — $14.7 million — went to building the Central Drive Residence Hall, which opened in October. Central Drive provided the university with 300 more beds and houses a faculty-in-residence program.
Western Carolina also unveiled The Village, an $11.4 million Greek housing complex built through private funding, in October.
And the university is in the midst of building a $30 million Fine and Performing Arts Center and just finished the expansion of a university center that includes a 160-seat meeting room, an auditorium for movies and lectures and 3,500 square feet of retail space.
Projects also in the works include renovations to science laboratories and classrooms in the Stillwell Building.
“The chancellor jokes that the construction crane is our campus mascot,” Tvedt said.
The Millennial Initiative is described on the university’s Web site as a “comprehensive regional economic development strategy.”
The initiative will encompass academic and research facilities, as well as businesses and housing. University officials hope the Millennial Initiative will put WCU at the forefront of innovative science and technology research through public-private partnerships.
“We want to keep the best and brightest of the region’s young people from having no choice but to leave home to find the type of high-paying jobs available elsewhere,” Bardo stated in a press release.
Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
