August 2007

Return of the natives

Ahhh, August. The sun beats down, the asphalt shimmers and cars loaded down with boxes begin to arrive on campus. Nothing says the start of the academic year like the flood of returning students. So what can campus expect with this sudden rise in people? Check out some of the numbers.

• 4,200 — number of students living on campus this year
• 85 — percentage of freshmen who will live on campus
• “A zillion” — number of students who applied to live in the new Spring Garden Apartments, according to the Department of Housing and Residence Life (It's the most popular choice for upperclass students. Weil-Winfield and Ragsdale-Mendenhall are the most popular among freshmen.)
• 125 — number of student groups signed up to participate in the Fall Kickoff festival (very possibly a record)
• 10,000 — number of students expected to participate in Fall Kickoff
• 150 — number of students signed up for the Freshman Summer Reading Project
• 6 — number of books students could choose from in the Freshman Summer Reading Project (Selections are: “Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You,” “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” “Cradle-to-Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things,” “Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood,” “Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” and “Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56.”)
• 150 — number of students expected to join a sorority or fraternity in the fall
• 50 — number of students expected to join a sorority or fraternity in the spring
• 46,659 — number of riders on the new UNCG HEAT Route 73 last year
• 12 — approximate number of temps stationed in parking lots during the first weeks of the semester to help drivers find parking spaces