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In a standing room only meeting with UNCG officials Wednesday, students, staff, faculty and neighbors made it clear: they want to preserve the school’s Quad.

The nearly 100 who attended the meeting strongly opposed leveling the seven dormitories, some of which date back to 1919, to make way for more modern student housing.

“I’d hate to come back and not recognize the university I graduated from,” said Mike Stout, a UNCG alumnus and regional director of Preservation North Carolina. “I’m afraid that’s what will happen if we keep making these changes to what is the history and the character of the campus.”

Chancellor Linda Brady and Vice Chancellor Carol Disque both reiterated no decision has been made, but said something has to be done soon to address a swelling on-campus population and the dire condition of the buildings. Brady said she’ll meet with alumni and the board of trustees next week and predicts a decision by May 1.

“We do need to meet the needs of 21st century students,” Brady said.

The Quad dorms are the last on UNCG’s campus without air conditioning — and that’s the least of their problems. School officials said the buildings have gone without maintenance to the tune of $32 million, including updates to bad wiring and plumbing and the addition of fire sprinklers and handicap accessibility.

The university estimates it would cost more to gut and renovate the buildings, which have asbestos in their walls, than to build more modern buildings with similar architecture in their place.

Updating the old buildings into this century would decrease the number of beds they could offer, Disque said, and would mean the university would also have to build a new 600-bed dorm somewhere else on campus.

Whether renovated or rebuilt, the new Quad would cost a little more than $100 million, Disque said.

UNCG is on track to bring 1,200 more students to campus by 2017. National studies show students who live on campus feel more connected to their universities and are more likely to graduate on time with higher GPAs. Brady said that though no students are required to live on campus, the school is committed to providing housing for those they can.

That’s not always easy, the chancellor said, because no state or tuition money goes toward housing — the buildings are maintained through the rent paid by their student residents.

Disque said newer dorms with suite and apartment style rooms, more kitchens and bathrooms will help the university compete for student housing dollars.

“Our students can vote with their feet and move off campus to newer off-campus apartments,” Disque said.

She showed a series of illustrated projections of options for the Quad that included adding extra floors to the Quad’s buildings, cutting its open lawn space into two courtyards and stacking new student dorms in a larger building at one end.

But many in the crowd — including many students — said keeping the Quad’s character is more important than having more rooms with better amenities.

“I lived on the Quad,” said Megan McClune, one of a group of interior architecture students who came to push for preservation. “That is the student area on campus — people play ultimate frisbee there, they lay out and do homework. People from other areas of campus go to the Quad as a place to be with their fellow classmates.”

David Wharton, a professor in the classical studies department who works with Preservation Greensboro, said the school has more to lose than visual appeal for students.

“Maybe incoming freshmen don’t always appreciate it,” Wharton said. “But every building tells a story. They tell the stories of a community and an institution over time. When these buildings go, the stories are no longer told.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com