The History of the University of North Carolina at Asheville

The physical appearance of the campus has continued to change in response to the needs of the university community. Currently, there are thirty buildings on campus, with the newest building, New Hall, completed at the end of 2005.  Also in 2005, construction began on the Steve and Frosene Zeis Science and Multimedia Building, which will house the departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Multimedia Arts and Sciences; and the Sam Miller Campus Operations Center, both of which are currently under construction.  Plans are also underway for the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness, which will be home to the Health and Wellness Promotion major and programs focusing on regional issues such as childhood obesity, workplace wellness, and senior citizen wellness.  Construction of the facility is funded by private funds and $35 million in state funds, approved by the 2004 North Carolina General Assembly. Pisgah House, the new Chancellor's residence slated to be built on South Campus, is also in the planning stages.

© 2006 UNC Asheville One University Heights, Asheville, North Carolina  28804    828-251-6600
Created By, D. H. Ramsey Library Special Collections Staff 2006

Cody Bradford, Jessica Wallace, and Andrew Fedynak
360° Sepia Panoramic Photograph of UNCA — James Phelps

Change for the Future

Highsmith wrote in his definitive history of UNCA, The First Sixty Years that he believed in the dedication to liberal arts education and “the dream of continuing to build in Asheville an institution that is recognized nationwide as a unique center of learning”.

 

Today Ponder continues to promote this ideal throughout her tenure.  "I'd like to give you an image that is very familiar to you --both as a physical image and as a literary allusion….The physical image is Pisgah.  If you stand on the front steps of the library and look across the Quad, in the distance, framed and orienting the campus is that Old Testament Pisgah.  That physical orientation gives this University a keen sense of place.  One I understand because generations of people I'm related to and that you are related to, have grown up in, born, lived and died in the shadow of, within sight of, Pisgah.  We can see Pisgah from here.  As a literary allusion, of course, Pisgah is about the promise of the future. The University of North Carolina at Asheville is at a very strong point in its life.  And its promise, almost immediately, is even brighter.  And what we can look for, lift up, is the image that makes the same phrase true for the whole University: We can see Pisgah from here." - Anne Ponder 2005

Mount Pisgah: Looking Forward