With its unveiling ceremony set to take place in less than a month, the National Pan-Hellenic Council Plaza is undergoing its final stages of construction.
The National Pan-Hellenic Council Plaza will be a designated space to recognize the five active chapters at ETSU and to educate about the history of the nine organizations of the National Panhellenic Council.
Construction for the project began on July 7, and the plaza is tentatively scheduled to be unveiled during ETSU’s Homecoming on Nov. 2.
The plaza will be located in an outdoor area between Governors and Centennial Halls. NPHC President Malineski Russell said it will be a gathering place for the council and its organizations to meet in a social aspect. Members will use the plaza for new member presentations, programming, community engagement, fundraisers and even just to do homework and listen to music.
“It will give them the opportunity to, one, know who we are and our organizations, but it will also give them the opportunity to do some research and to be able to know some of the things that we stand for – some of the things that we do in the community,” Russell said. “A lot of community members have helped donate toward this because of the work that we do for the community. It will give us the opportunity to be able to socialize and come together in a cool and unique way and bring in all knowledge to the council as a whole as well.”
The Plaza has three phases of construction, and Russell said phase one and phase two are complete. Phase one involved the construction of pillars, and phase two involved the addition of lights and sound equipment.
Only phase three remains, which involves finishing out the plaza with information about the organizations. This will include shields with the coat of arms for each organization and the history of when and where each organization was founded. Russell said they are currently waiting on the shields to come in. Phase three also involves a donor plaque that will permanently display the names of donors of the project.
“It has been a conversation to have a plaza for many, many years – way before I was even probably in elementary school,” Russell said.
Although the idea had been tossed around for years, Russell said NPHC officially brought up the conversation of building a plaza to SGA and ETSU in 2017. The idea was initially accepted, but Russell said it did not get approved during the approval stage. However, they continued to push for the idea until it was eventually approved for construction to start in 2019.
Russell said he is excited for the plaza because he was a part of the initial conversation in 2017. Back then, he was NPHC vice president. Now, as NPHC president, he can watch what was once an idea become a reality.
“Just to see it happening now – and I’m back into my second term as president – I think it’s going to be really cool to be able to see it all happen and be able to have my alumni, who have joined our organization or just alumni in general, who were on campus when all of the organizations were on campus,” Russell said. “It will be really cool for them to be able to just see that representation of each organization.”
The ETSU National Pan-Hellenic Council is the governing body for the historically African-American fraternities and sororities. The council engages in programming and activities on campus, as well as community service. They are dedicated to social action, political empowerment and economic development.
ETSU has five active undergraduate chapters on campus that are a part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.
NPHC President Malineski Russell said they plan to add a sixth organization – Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. – this semester.
