Preserve Peabody Park at UNCG

Letter to the Editor, The Greensboro News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina), 2 March 2001.

Preserve Peabody Park

I am pleased to hear that new construction in UNCG’s educational park would not be Chancellor Pat Sullivan’s “first choice” for campus development (News & Record, Feb. 17).

It is hard to know what that statement might mean, however, since the first version of UNCG’s new campus master plan includes destroying another section of Peabody Park for a dormitory and parking area west of Moore-Strong Hall. The claims of Fred Patrick and others in his business affairs division that this area is not part of Peabody Park are disingenuous.

Despite a wide range of alternatives presented in writing to the chancellor and the trustees by a group of faculty; despite an outcry from students, faculty, staff and neighbors five years ago when the university proposed a parking lot in this same location, despite an offer of substantial financial support for Peabody Park from a group of alumni, support which the university turned away; despite all this, one of the first items on the new campus plan is destroying more of Peabody Park.

Peabody Park is a century old this year. It ought to be the educational treasure that President McIver envisioned.

But it never will be if the university, instead of thinking creatively and acting responsibly, just continues to parrot thoughtless slogans like “landlocked campus,” left over from the previous administration.

Robert J. O’Hara
Greensboro