We’ve discovered a lot about UNC Asheville over the years together. How ingrained it is with the local community; how many local entrepreneurs are Bulldogs; how it launched a student-athlete mentorship program; its initiatives surrounding American Indian & Indigenous peoples; and much, much more. But here at AVLtoday, our mantra is “never stop learning.”
Ahead of two upcoming UNC Asheville Discovery Day sessions this fall – “Open Houses” for prospective students and families, with Academic + Student Life Showcases,1:1 faculty meetings, campus tours + more – here are 19 cool facts about UNC Asheville.
- UNC Asheville alumni have worked on all seven continents – even Antarctica. Brrr.
- UNC Asheville students discovered a new planet and traveled around the world in search of new species of reptiles and amphibians this past year, with funding from NASA and the Smithsonian. Impressive.
- Faculty, staff, students and community members created the largest sculpture to ever be installed in Times Square in a project led by world-renowned artist Mel Chin.
- UNC Asheville’s students contribute 2,963 community service hours per year, averaging 41.73 hours per student organization – that’s a full week’s work per org.
- UNC Asheville welcomed six New York Times best-selling authors, six critically acclaimed filmmakers and leaders from broadcast journalism, and two Grammy-award winning artists to campus last year. Similar events start again this fall.
- UNC Asheville (UNCA) is the original and only liberal arts and sciences campus in the UNC System.
- UNC Asheville founded the National Conference on Undergraduate Research more than 30 years ago and has hosted it five times since then.
- At least 48 students and alumni have been awarded prestigious Fulbright Fellowships to teach + research around the world.
- The men’s basketball team was nicknamed the “Baby Bulldogs” in 2019 as the youngest team in the NCAA. This season they’ll have another year of experience (which equals seven in dog-years, so watch out Big South competitors). Tickets here.
- UNC Asheville’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute has more than 2,500 local members with 220 instructors & 352 courses.
- UNC Asheville Dining Services serves 265,318 meals each year in Brown Dining Hall and caters to 67,279 guests in a year, while dishing up 170 pounds of food donations for Food Connections each week
- UNC Asheville offers classes in the Cherokee language, which has just over 2,000 native speakers.
- Lookout Observatory houses a collection of images from the universe and is open to the public for stargazes (the roof opens too). Schedule a visit here.
- Mechatronics engineering students have a 100% success rate for employment or graduate school within three months of graduation, and with the CISCO Robot senior capstone project, even their robots were employed by graduation.
- The Department of Management and Accountancy at UNC Asheville is among 5% of the world’s business schools to earn accreditation from AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Bulldogs mean business.
- The school has the only full Classics department in WNC. Classic UNCA.
- It’s also the only university in the state that offers teacher licensure in Latin.
- All classes at UNC Asheville are taught by faculty, not teaching assistants.
- UNC Asheville athletes are just as competitive in the classroom. 2019 valedictorian Blanton Gillespie was named a first-team Academic All-American and is UNC Asheville’s third-ever Big South Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year, joining UNC Asheville men’s soccer legend Mike Roach (2001-02) and men’s basketball standout Kevin Vannatta (2017-18). It also marks the second straight year that UNC Asheville track & field/cross country has been honored with a Big South annual award, with Kayli Nichols chosen last year as the 2017-18 Big South Woman of the Year.
Discover more about UNC Asheville at Discovery Day (Sept. 28 + Nov. 9, 2019). Ⓟ
