Administrative officials and staff gathered yesterday to celebrate the grand opening of the E. Carroll Visitor Center located off the corner of Western Boulevard and Varsity Drive.

The building will provide a starting place for all campus tours and features interactive exhibits on the University’s colleges, academic programs and student life.

Executive Director of University Development Becky Bumgardner, who organized all fund-raising efforts to help construct the center, said the University has needed a place where visitors interested in learning about the University could come and have a starting point for their explorations of the campus.

“We are calling this our front door to the community,” Bumgardner said. “It’s a great place to have to provide information for future students and the community.”

The building is named after alumnus Edward Carroll Joyner who contributed a large portion of the funds needed for its construction, which totaled approximately $5 million. Joyner said the building will play an important role in shaping the way visitors see the University.

“I believe first impressions — not speech, but looks, have a greater bearing on a person’s mind then any other thing,” Joyner said. “Here they can get a fast impression of how great this University is and it will make them want to be a part of it.”

Joyner said he is extremely impressed with what the organizers have accomplished.

“My philosophy is that any project I do is: it always has to be first class,” Joyner said.

Center director Amy Hays said the building is only the first step in a number of programs and reforms that will provide an opportunity for departments all over campus to work together.

“What you see here is only the beginning,” Hays said.

Hays said the center will be a focal point for conducting research projects on visitors to the University. She points out that these studies will provide staff and administrative officials a better understanding of how to serve the community.

“We see our visitors as fitting into one of three categories,” Hays said. “Perspective students and their families, folks visiting Raleigh who want to know about the campus and bus loads of middle school students visiting the University.”

The new center, Hays said, provides an indispensable service to all new visitors. “It provides a small taste of everything else that can be found on campus,” she said.