UNCLE, one of UNC's newest campus organizations, was created last February by a board of seven students, said Chairman Alistair Cooper, a senior political science major.
"We wanted a way to make intellectual resources more readily available to freshmen on campus, to give them more options," Cooper said. "Too many people when they come in are arbitrarily attracted to the first thing they find just so they can be involved.
"UNCLE encourages more diverse involvement in campus activities."
The organization is composed of 76 mentoring pairs made up of an upperclassman and an ambitious freshman or transfer, where upperclassmen share their expertise and experiences with the underclassmen.
"We want the pairs to form meaningful relationships, so we were careful to pair them based on character compatibility," Cooper said.
Beyond just the immediate one-on-one relationship, the organization hopes to create a familial cohesion, Cooper said. All mentors compile information about their involvements and experiences to form a reservoir of information for those they mentor.
While heavily reliant on the mentoring program, the organization also includes other elements to give it a greater depth and dimension, he said.
"We have a Web site set up with information about campus events, auditions, application deadlines, Pit activities and more," he said. "We also take that information and compile it into a bi-weekly bulletin for mentees and anyone else interested."
The organization also hosts monthly resource seminars to expose freshmen to speakers from outside UNC and the virtues of internal organizations, he said.
