Look down, then back up; where are you? If you’re reading this in a print edition, there’s probably a good chance you’re in the EMU, a building funded nearly entirely by former University students. The same rings true for the Student Recreation Center and McArthur Court.
These beautiful, large, classic buildings are here, for the most part, because of an infusion of fees from people who would have never used the buildings as a student.
Next month, students are all voting on whether or not they approve of an increase in fees in order to fund renovations to the EMU and the rec center. The referendum was proposed when a vote on the fee was removed from the state Board of Higher Education’s June agenda. Students had shown up to that meeting to speak out against the fee, so University President Richard Lariviere opted to take the vote off the agenda. The student government will be running this election November in much the same way it runs its own April election.
The victorious result will not directly determine the final decision, but Vice President for Student Affairs Robin Holmes has told the Emerald that an overwhelming majority response will sway the opinions. If it is approved, the fee would not be fully instituted immediately; in the first year following the vote students would face a new fee of $30 per term that would phase into a full $100 per term  every year thereafter for the next 30 years.
But since the vote will not determine the results of the EMU outright, there are things the administration has to remember until the vote takes place.
1. Stop acting like the results of the vote will be inevitable. We understand that you were given a gift and the generally accepted response to a gift is to accept it. But in announcing that gift, no mention was made with regard to the fact that it’s not assured that we’ll be renovating the EMU just yet.
2. That 79 percent of students voted to support a new EMU should be taken with a grain of salt. As we recall, it seemed like pulling teeth to get students to fill out that survey. We believe that the numbers from this upcoming vote will likely be closer than that survey’s results.
3. There are intangibles to the building that should be treated with care. The ASUO and student unions have raised concern about the states of their offices, but there are also multiple publications and other types of groups that have specific needs from offices that temporary spaces won’t help with. We can’t imagine trying to put together a 30-page magazine together on the floor of a temporarily established office.
Recent history
According to an article from the Emerald archives, an architecture firm actually brought a plan for a brand-new EMU in fall term 2002 with an expected completion date in January 2003. That got shot down eventually and the EMU remained in its current state — last renovated in 1970. The plans then, the article reads, incorporated such outlandish suggestions as an expanded food court, lost-and-found area and earlier hours for coffee shops.
At the meeting to announce the architect’s plan, held in the Ben Linder room, students and others said things that mirror problems we still have today.
“When I give tours, I describe the EMU as a Swiss Family Robinson treehouse for college students,” then-sophomore Andrea Hall told the Emerald.
There’s not enough to be found in the archives to indicate exactly what students’ concerns were back then that caused them to vote against the fee, but it seems it had a lot to do with the high costs of such renovations.
Conclusions
We definitely see a need for a renovated EMU and scores of students in years past have funded many things that drive student life today. We, as a University, have a history of leaving things cooler than we found them. That’s not what we’re addressing today.
Today, we’re saying that if the student vote is not directly determining the fate of the EMU, the administration should stay away from the voting by implying reasons for approving. The voting process was handed to the ASUO for a reason and the University should keep it free of meddling at the top.