Fifty-one students in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business traveled to Charlotte on Oct. 2 to explore how the city’s history, growth and housing challenges continue to shape its communities.
Students from the Center for Humanity in Business 3+Co-op Leaders Program, the Accelerated 3+1 Business Dual-Degree Program and the Entrepreneurship for the Greater Good course spent the day learning from community historian and author Tom Hanchett; Fred Dodson, chief operating officer of DreamKey Partners; and Kevin Trapani P’07, P’23, P’24, executive in residence and founding director of the Center for Humanity in Business.
The annual experience uses Charlotte as a classroom, helping students connect business education with the economic and social forces shaping the city.
Thomas Flaherty ’27, an entrepreneurship and innovation major, said the tour challenged some of his assumptions about affordable housing.
“The bus tour really changed my perception because the housing was actually really nice, clean and friendly-looking,” Flaherty said. “There were lots of trees and people walking around, so it showed how the housing met people’s living needs.”
Ian Knarr ’30, an economics major, came away with a different perspective on the city itself.
“Usually, when you see a city, you only see one part of it, but we got to see so many parts and how every part is different from each other,” Knarr said.
Trapani encouraged students to think about how understanding a place can shape the way they engage with its challenges.
“Things don’t just change. You have to change them,” Trapani told students. “It is important in order for you to become a full member of society to understand what you deeply care about and fight for it.”
Hanchett discussed how federal and local policies shaped Charlotte’s neighborhoods and development patterns and why understanding that history matters for future business and community leaders.
“The stories that I’m telling are stories that you will find everywhere in the U.S.,” Hanchett said. “It is hard sometimes to see them, but it shapes who we are.”
Dodson introduced students to DreamKey Partners’ work in affordable and mixed-income housing, including the Brightwalk development near uptown Charlotte. Students learned about the financing, partnerships and long-term planning involved in developing mixed-income communities and how those projects can affect surrounding neighborhoods.
“It is not just about housing,” Dodson said. “By building this community, we became an economic catalyst.”
Amarina Beard-Galati ’28, an entrepreneurship and innovation major, said traveling along Central Avenue highlighted another dimension of the city.
“Seeing all these shops and all these cultures that people have created is a sign that people want to come together and create a community that embraces us all,” Beard-Galati said.
For students in the Center for Humanity in Business program, Charlotte will become an even larger part of their Elon experience when they spend their fourth year living in the city and completing a co-op experience tied to responsible management practices and their career interests.
Meira Flavin ’30, a marketing major, said the visit shifted her understanding of Charlotte.
“Coming into this experience, I had a preconceived notion of what Charlotte was,” Flavin said. “That changed today.”