The Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center, usually called simply the Dean Smith Center and popularly referred to as the Dean Dome and sometimes called "Blue Heaven" because of the wall to wall "Carolina blue" inside the building, is a multi-purpose arena in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The arena opened in 1986. It is home to the University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball team.

It is named after former UNC coach Dean Smith, who coached at UNC from 1961 to 1997. Smith originally did not want the arena named after him, but was persuaded by the UNC administration and the arena's backers that the drive to fund the building could fail if they did not use his name. The arena originally seated 21,444. Seating adjustments brought capacity to 21,572 in 1992 and 21,750 in 2000. The largest crowd to see a game in the Dean Dome--and the largest ever to see a college basketball game on campus in North Carolina--was on February 5, 1998, when 22,050 saw the Tar Heels defeat Duke.

The arena was built to allow more fans to attend Tar Heel basketball games than could fit in then 21-year-old, 10,000-seat Carmichael Auditorium. The Tar Heels have been among the nation's attendance leaders ever since the arena opened. The seats seem far away, but no seat is further than 150 feet from the playing floor. Before the game, the lighting is adjusted to focus more on the court, recreating the lighting effect at Carmichael.

There is some controversy surrounding the continued support of the Dean Dome by the state government. The Dean Dome actually runs in the red every year, and its substantial ticket revenues are not included in the budget.

The arena's seating arrangement has been somewhat controversial. Most of the lower-level seats were allocated to members of UNC's athletic booster foundation, the Educational Foundation (better known as the Rams Club). Furthermore, most of those seats are season tickets. While tickets are usually available for most non-conference games, scalping is virtually the only way to get into games against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents.

In its early years, the arena was known as among the quieter ones in the country because many seats that would have been occupied by students at other schools were occupied by alumni who weren't very inclined to cheer. This led some players, such as Florida State's Sam Cassell, to think the Dean Dome was home to a "wine and cheese crowd." Since 1992, however, expanded student seating has made the Smith Center louder. For example, after the then top-ranked Connecticut Huskies were defeated by Carolina at the Dean Dome in 2004, Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said, "I don't know what they are talking about because there was no 'wine and cheese' crowd here today."

The Tar Heels are one of the nation's most dominant home teams. Many students spend four years at Carolina and only see six home losses. Finishing the 2005-06 season, they were 220-47 (.824) in games played at the Dome — an average of 11.0 wins against 2.4 losses each season over 21 years. This average would be even lower were it not for the 2001-02 season, in which the Tar Heels finished with their first losing record since 1961-62--Smith's first season as coach. They have only finished three seasons undefeated at the Dean Dome--1986-87, 1992-93 and 2004-05.

The arena has also held many concerts and is used by many of the graduate and professional schools, such as the UNC School of Law, for commencement ceremonies each year, as well as the same for all undergraduates receiving degrees in December of each year.

College basketball venues | North Carolina Tar Heels basketball | Sports venues in North Carolina | Indoor arenas in the United States