The new University Center renovations are a vanity project pushed by the current administration as a billboard UTA can point to.Â
 Seraphine Pecson, civil engineering sophomore and guest columnist
The project seeks to take out a loan from the University of Texas System to pay for the proposed renovations, one later paid off by increasing the student union fee to $300 per year. I speak for myself and my peers when I say that many students hardly make rent and meals even with the aid from FAFSA; the price hike could be debilitating for much of the student body.Â
The new UC would serve as a prime location to showcase the campus’ beauty. During my orientation, we only toured through the prettiest parts of the campus. We slept in Vandergriff Hall, played volleyball in the Maverick Activities Center and ate meals in the UC.Â
We rarely caught a peek inside the school’s older buildings. Had I known that a year later, my Science Hall civil engineering lectures would be spent on a perpetually soaked carpet thanks to a leaky AC unit, I might not have been as eager to enroll.
This brings up another issue I have with the new UC. UTA must get its priorities straight. The student union fee increase would only go toward a few of our facilities, which ignores the countless other buildings on our campus that need renovation.Â
Buildings with issues like Science Hall’s sopping wet carpets or Nedderman Hall, which has elevators occasionally reeking of burning rubber, need updates too. The focus on the UC overshadows other facilities that need the campus’ attention more.Â
The university is an academic institution and for many students such as myself, the UC is only a transient area to visit between lectures. Â
The fleeting moments we spend in the UC, eating food or picking up mail, pale in the face of the hours we spend sitting in lecture halls. UTA must focus its energy on improving and upkeeping our academic buildings, spaces in which the majority of the commuter student body spends most of their time.
One can even argue that buildings like the dormitories are more essential to update, considering how many students spend hours scrounging for a washing machine to use.
Going forward, the school should learn to listen to the masses if they hope to pass something as big as the new UC by vote. Voting against the UC will show the university what issues and concerns actually matter to the student body.Â
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(2) comments
This is a fantastic opinion piece! I wholeheartedly agree, some of the academic buildings are in a disgraceful state, but oh no, other universities have fancy central facilities and we need to look good like them...such a joke.
Vote no!
As another student with tight finances, I understand being leery of a hike in a fee, and I agree that there are other areas of the university in need of renovation, but I do not agree that choosing to withhold a change in the fee sends the message you are hoping to send to the University.
The needed repairs mentioned in other areas like housing and academic facilities are paid for by the state and other funding streams, so choosing not to fund a new UC would not affect these other areas or create a change in priorities at all.
My understanding is that the UC is a space that has to be funded by students because it is maintained outside these other budgets. It is one of the few spaces on campus that has a direct benefit for all students regardless of their area of study or whether they commute or live on campus, but it takes students fees to directly pay for part of it.
The UC is its own entity so that’s why students get the choice whether they would like to contribute to a new community space by updating a fee that has been the same since the 80s, or they can elect not to. The only message sent will be whether that funding exists for this particular project or not. So while there are other needs on campus, with this vote we are just choosing the results for this particular project.
I personally think a reasonable fee that will just become a very small percentage of my overall tuition and fees is a worthwhile investment to have a space that benefits our whole campus community.
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