Melville Broughton announced the first major gift to The Woman’s College (now UNCG). This gift, in commemoration of the school’s fiftieth anniversary, was a contribution in the amount of $50,000 from Greensboro’s Cone Family (Mrs. Julius Cone, Mrs. Caesar Cone and her three sons, Herman, Benjamin and Caesar II). The funds were to be used, according to the Cones, toward construction of a Student Ce
nter, “the most pressing single need of the college.”
The funds would also have to be matched. Funds were allocated for the project by the Council of State, and the Works Progress Administration promised help. Priorities on steel and World War II delayed Construction for more than a decade. Elliott Hall, named after Harriet Wiseman Elliott, opened its doors to the campus on March 1, 1953. Harriet Elliott came to the State Normal (now UNCG) in 1913 as a faculty member in the Department of History and Political Science. In 1953 she became Dean of Women and had a dream for “a place under one roof where the education gained in the classroom could be extended and coordinated with the “extracurricular”. In the fall of 1968, an extension of the student center was opened to provide more facilities for the expanding University. In the spring of 1974, the building name was officially changed to the Harriet Elliott University Center. In August 2001, a new two-story addition opened which houses the UNCG Bookstore and a food court. In January 2003, the original building reopened after undergoing an extensive two-year renovation. In January of 2006 the EUC/Library Connector opened connecting the Jackson Library, which serves as the academic heart of the campus with the Elliott University Center, the social center of the campus.
