In 1889 North Carolina legislature issued a charter establishing Elon College in one of North Carolina’s oldest counties – Alamance County. Seven of Elon’s eight presidents were born in the South and U.S. News and World Report ranks Elon as the top regional university in the south. The rest of the school’s make up, is distinctly less southern.
When asked to explain Elon to an outsider, one might mention that the mascot is the Phoenix or that the school has a high study abroad rate. However, describing Elon as a northern school in the south has become a more prominent defining trait.
While it is true that the highest percentage of students hail from North Carolina, the majority of Elon’s students come from states located above the Mason-Dixon line. More than 55 percent of students in the two most recent incoming classes reside in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic regions of the country. States such as Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut are among the most common states where Elon students reside.
Northern students are exposed to some new ways of life. Southern cuisine, like sweet tea, grits, and barbecue, are regional staples. The pace of life in the South can be considered a bit slower. The classic Southern drawl from locals also becomes a telltale sign of where the university is situated. The laid back tone contrasts with the more hectic pace of Northern life.
Some students may even be a bit thrown by some Southern terminology, such as calling a shopping cart a “buggy” or a winter cap a “toboggan” or saying “grocery” instead of “grocery store.”
Some Elon students have already been exposed to the mixture of Northern and Southern cultures. Students who call the Washington, D.C. area home have had a taste of both world. The Mason-Dixon line, which lies right above Maryland, calls everything below it the South. While drawn in the late 1700s, this line still holds some truth about how the regions’ cultures slowly divide.
Culture shock can go both ways for Elon students. There is a large influx of students from the North, yet those from the South also experience an exposure to a more Northern culture. This makes Elon a quintessential melting pot. Although Elon may not be as racially diverse as other schools across the country, the unique location of the university provides students with a platform from which they can mingle with people from parts of the country that they would not otherwise interact with.
College is a time when students work, live and play side by side with thousands of people around their age. At no other time in their lives are people living in such close proximity with so many people who are all pursuing the same goal.
It is true that Elon, despite its location, is not a southern school. However, this is not a bad thing. For although Elon isn’t as southern as a school like Appalachian State University, it’s lack of classic southern values means that its campus is a strong blend of Northern and Southern cultures.
To take full advantage of attending school in the South, go and immerse yourself in the community. Talking to people and getting to know them can make the Southern university experience more vivid.
Elon is a great place to understand something new and get to know a different way of life. In fact, the school encourages it heavily by promoting the idea of “global citizenship” – which students can easily start by embracing their southern surroundings.