Main Campus and Health Sciences Campus Student Centers

History and Tradition

From East Carolina’s birth in 1907, the university’s engaged student body has called three different facilities home. Until 1923 students gathered, ate, and visited various support services in the Old Cafeteria Building, one of the campus’s six original buildings. Over the next 50 years the Wright Building, named after East Carolina University’s first president, Robert Herring Wright, served as student’s social, spiritual, and recreational home. Dedicated on February 9, 1974, the Mendenhall Student Center became the university’s largest student facility. Named after Cynthia Anne Mendenhall, the first director of the Student Union (now the Student Activities Board), the 116,000 sq. ft. facility has become a destination point for numerous student centered activities, organizations, and gatherings as well as student services, recreation and program facilities, and various food services.

In March of 2013, the East Carolina University Board of Trustees approved a plan to build two state-of-the-art student center facilities on the Main and Health Sciences Campuses. Supported by student fees, building revenue, and on and off campus partners, these two facilities will serve current and future students, faculty, and staff as well as our over 150,000 proud alumni of East Carolina University. Existing as Pirate Nation’s “living room,” both facilities will empower the campus community around our motto Servire and serving as a hub for cultural, educational, social, and recreational activities. The centers will exemplify the university’s mission as the leadership university, committed to student success, public service, and regional transformation.

Student Life HIP (High Impact Practices) Definition:

Educational opportunities involving experiential learning that require significant student investment, designed to build life skills through engagement and reflection.

Student Centers HIP 1:

Develop a robust student employee training program that focuses on both job training and development of transferable work-related skills for professional employment after the student graduates from college.

Student Centers HIP 2:

Create, develop, and support design elements within the student centers in open spaces that represent the history, tradition, values, multiple identities, work, and life experiences of the ECU community.

The ECU Student Centers support the mission of the Division of Student Affairs