New Housing facility plans presented to ASUSU Tuesday
Plans for the proposed 502-bed residence hall and 800-stall parking terrace were presented to the Associated Students of Utah State University Executive Council on Tuesday.
Steve Jenson, director of Housing and Food Services, and Whitney Milligan, also of Housing and Food Services, joined Vice President for Student Services Juan Franco in the presentation.
They explained to ASUSU what would be included in the proposed building and talked about why it is needed on campus.
“One thing we’ve tried to do is identify how this fits in with the 10 university goals,” Jenson said. “We feel like it is a very important part of the university’s mission.”
One way in which the new facility would fit in with the university’s mission, housing officials said, was in recruitment and retention of freshmen.
The new residence hall would feature 75 percent of the beds in shared rooms and 25 percent in private rooms. The apartments as a whole, however, would be designed in a “super-suite” style, featuring community kitchens where each kitchen would serve eight to 12 students, Milligan said. The layout of the rooms would be similar to residence halls being constructed at other campuses across the country.
Milligan said the design of the rooms would help freshmen thrive in the living and learning community. She said the majority of housing at USU today is apartment style – a type of housing that is not conducive to young students.
“There’s a much greater dropout rate of freshmen living in apartment-style housing,” Milligan said.
She said the super-suite style of housing would help freshmen meet people, improve social skills and get more involved in campus activities.
“It’s not necessarily a favorite of older students, but we have other types of housing in place that can accommodate older students,” she said.
Franco said there are still some hurdles the university must go through before getting final approval and funding to build the facility. The Board of Regents must approve the project and then funding would have to be secured from the Legislature.
Pending approval from the Regents and Legislature, the new facility could be ready by fall 2005.
Portuguese please
Jason Campbell, a senior graphic design major who is minoring in Spanish and Portuguese, asked the council for their support in saving the Portuguese minor program.
Campbell said the decision had been made to cut the program due to lack of funding, possibly leaving 224 declared Portuguese minors out in the cold.
“The Portuguese has more minors than all of the other languages combined, excluding Spanish of course,” Campbell said.
A total of 259 USU students have declared Spanish as their minor, Campbell said.
“There’s just a huge demand for [Portuguese] here at the school,” he said. “It would be really beneficial to the school if it stayed.”
Campbell said a group of students are getting together and forming a petition to keep the program at USU. He asked members of ASUSU to sign the petition.
Organizations and Traditions Vice President Dave Osmond asked Campbell what more members of ASUSU could do to help. Campbell said they could just take the petition and get people to sign it.
ASUSU President Duke Di Stefano appointed Academic Vice President Karla Petty, Student Advocate Vice President Les Essig and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Senator Gabe White to an ad hoc committee to investigate the issue.
Campbell said he hopes the petition gets going and student support for the program can get rallied.
“I just think it’s a really poor decision,” he said. “I just think if they knew what the student demand for Portuguese was, they would get behind it.”
Other council business
Natural Resources Senator Scott Shine invited students to participate in Natural Resources Week activities. He said Wednesday would be the big day of the week. During the day, students will be able to learn more about natural foods and other products at the Green Products exhibition, in front of the Taggart Student Center Auditorium.
Shine said there will be a panel at 3 p.m. in the Sunburst Lounge, where panelists will talk about urban sprawl and managing growth along the Wasatch Front.
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