Auburn's National Pan-Hellenic Council took another step towards its goal of building a Legacy Plaza on campus during this year's Tiger Giving Day on Feb. 24. The Auburn Family raised $31,240 for the Legacy Plaza by the donation deadline at the end of the day.
The Legacy Plaza will be a physical commemoration for the Greek organizations of NPHC, all nine of which have been on Auburn’s campus at one point.
“I have been dealing with this project from the beginning, and I think the Legacy Plaza specifically is important because it is going to be the first architectural indication of NPHC’s existence on campus,” said Ada Ruth Huntley, senior in global studies and 2020 SGA president.
Auburn currently hosts five NPHC organizations: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.
Bobby Woodard, senior vice president for Student Affairs, said this contributes to construction costs, as well as several years of upkeep on the finished plaza. The Student Government Association voted to make this project a 2021 Tiger Giving Day campaign.
“Each year, SGA gets to choose a Tiger Giving Day event or thing they want to do, and this year they chose the NPHC Legacy [Plaza],” Woodard said.
The donation page for the plaza featured donation tiers of $9, $19.72, $57 and $115, each number holding special significance for the project.
According to the webpage, the $9 donation represented the Divine Nine; the $19.72 for the first year an NPHC organization was on Auburn’s campus; the $57 for the 57 years since the first Black student, also an NPHC member, came to Auburn and the $115 for the founding of the first Black Greek organization.
The Tiger Giving Day goal was not a funding goal but a participation goal, Huntley said.
“[One goal was] to educate more and more people about NPHC and the legacy plaza and what that is,” she said. “By aspiring to reach a goal of 1,000 participants, it really had us focusing on reaching more people, telling them about what the plaza was, why it’s significant to the Auburn Family, particularly Black members of the Auburn Family.”
While the plaza is purposed to honor NPHC, it will primarily be a place for NPHC students and alumni to gather for events, according to Huntley.
“It’s also going to give members of NPHC, both current and alumni, a place to gather — for events for tailgates, whatever that might look like — that we haven’t had previously,” she said.
Huntley, who is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, said the plaza's development was “certainly a personal project” for her as a member of both NPHC and SGA.
Woodard said Student Affairs aims to have the plaza finished by Oct. 1 of this year. Construction is being performed by HNP Landscape Architects, a landscape architecture firm based in Birmingham, Alabama, according to renderings on the University's webpage for the plaza.
“I’m really excited for when it’s officially done and we can kind of gather for the first time,” Huntley said.
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Emma Kirkemier, junior in English literature with a minor in journalism, is the campus reporter for The Auburn Plainsman.
