UNC Visitors’ Center offers campus tours in Spanish

To make campus more accessible, the UNC Visitors’ Center has started offering their Welcome to Carolina tour in Spanish.

“We brought in a student assistant this past fall who is bilingual, and as she started giving the tour, she said it would be great to have these in Spanish,” Sarah Champion, administrative manager of the visitors’ center said.

Champion said the tours in Spanish have been advertised since the end of the fall 2016 semester. They are being advertised to anyone who has an interest in touring but would find it easier if it were in Spanish.

Caitlyn Delgado is a sophomore who gives general tours through the UNC Visitors’ Center and works with the student assistant who designed the Spanish tours.

“She worked really hard making sure all the translations are accurate,” Delgado said. “Nothing was messed up in translation.”

The Welcome to Carolina tour is a general tour of the University given to anyone who is curious about the campus.

Ashley Memory, the assistant director for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, said the admissions department is also working on designing tours in Spanish, but they are still in the planning stages of the project.

Champion said even though it is called the Visitors’ Center, they are not only willing to attract visitors, but also enrolled students.

“We think that Carolina is an incredible place and one that deserves to have its stories told,” Champion said.

Tours in Spanish aren’t the only way the Visitors’ Center is trying to be more inclusive. They also offer the Priceless Gems tour, which looks at UNC history through specific lenses.

The Priceless Gems tours are all lead by experts in their fields. One example is the Black and Blue tour, the oldest and most popular Priceless Gem tour, which is lead by Robert Porter, a professor in the department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies. It aims to cover the African-American experience on UNC’s campus.

The UNC Visitors’ Center also gives general tours, which are often given by students like Delgado.

In 2008 Missy Julian-Fox, the current director of the visitors’ center, started the First Look program, which is aimed at middle school students, making sure to deliver three main messages: that college is a possibility, that it creates options and opportunities and that the price of college should not be an obstacle. They, however, do not offer tours for potential students.

Delgado said she is passionate about sharing interesting stories about the University with the public. She said one of her favorite facts about the University is the two gargoyles at Person Hall, which were transferred here directly from Big Ben in London.

“Working at the Visitors’ Center has made me appreciate campus a lot more,” Delgado said.

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