Proponents of the Student Union Initiative say Memorial Union desperately requires renovation and that Union South is too small and unwelcoming to students.
Despite that, initially I was against voting ""yes"" to SUI. I felt like there was nothing wrong with the current structures and that maintaining the status quo was more than adequate.Then I looked around campus and quickly changed my mind.
It is hard to walk to class on any given day and not see a new building going up or an old building being renovated. The new dorms under construction by the Southeast Recreational Facility, the redevelopment project at University Square and the $40 million Grainger Hall expansion highlight a five-minute walk from the SERF to Vilas Hall. Even more projects are scheduled in upcoming years.
Set for completion in 2010, the $375 million Wisconsin Institute for Discovery project will create a massive research building directly across from Union South between West Johnson Street and University Avenue.
This building will only increase the need for student amenities on the Southwest side of campus and will undoubtedly overshadow the existing Union South building. A new Union South would complement the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery building and create a permanent location for students to gather in the Southwest area.
The Kohl Center opened in 1998 and recently Camp Randall received a major renovation, giving the University of Wisconsin some of the finest sports venues in the country.
Did they absolutely have to be built or renovated at that very moment? Of course not, the university would have survived with the Field House and an old, deteriorating Camp Randall.
While surviving is the objective of any business or institution, once that status is achieved, the next goal is to thrive, and creating new, state of the art institutions enables that. A refurbished Memorial Union and a larger, more efficient Union South would become showcase features on the campus tours given to prospective students.
Memorial Union was built in 1928 and, at the time, only 8,000 students attended this university. In 2006, 78 years later, more than 40,000 students now attend and MU is still relatively the same. In many ways, that is not a bad thing, but obviously an upgrade is needed.
The union needs to be renovated solely to preserve and enhance its historic features while equipping it with modern essentials such as sprinkler systems and Internet cables.
By shoring up all the maintenance issues and safety concerns that a building of such age possesses, the university can ensure that the MU will be around for many decades to come. The plan is to preserve all of the murals, architecture and tables in the Rathskeller, Paul Bunyan Room and other historic components of the union.
If this initiative is passed, one caveat should be added to construct a small movie theater within Union South that would consist of three or four mid-sized screens. This would address a glaring need for students, especially those under the age of 21, as the recent demolition of the University Square Theater left a void in student extracurricular affairs.
Students can vote today and Thursday from noon until 6:30 p.m. at Gordon Commons, Holt Commons, College Library or Wendt Library. Ultimately, this initiative will continue to be placed on ballots until it emerges victorious, as it assuredly has the backing of the university.
Delaying construction will inevitably cost more, as costs will continue to increase while maintenance and inefficient energy usage will continue to waste money.
If students came to this university despite markedly high increases in tuition fees over recent years, they might as well vote yes on this initiative and pay to upgrade the recreational aspects of this campus as well.
