House Undergraduate Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will receive an endowment worth at least $20,000 from the senior class of 2003.
UNC-CH seniors decided upon the endowment in an online poll that included two other choices. One would have set up a Special Needs Fund through the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid that would be used to address academic and living needs of students, such as winter coats or formal attire for interviews. The other would be glass etchings in the Campus Y building to memorialize the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Campus Y Co-president Hildy Fong urged seniors in a letter in The Daily Tar Heel to choose the etchings because they “would ensure the remembrance of this crucial time (Sept. 11) in our lives.” Fong wrote that unlike the library, the Campus Y receives no state and private funds, and “[t]he gift would guarantee the success and longevity of the Y, which has fostered change and diversity on our campus for years.” Furthermore, Fong wrote, the gift of the etchings “would be showing the UNC[-CH] arts community support long overdue for what they stand for.”
The library option beat out the etchings by 36 votes, 486 to 450, while the special-needs option received 244 votes.
Senior class Vice President Rob Albright told the DTH that the seniors’ decision was “about our valuing the academic climate and how we appreciate what the library is about.”
Sanders is assistant editor for Carolina Journal.