Mississippi State plans to charge a Union fee starting next fall to help pay for renovations being done to Colvard Student Union.
The Union fee for students will cost $2.50 per credit hour with a $30 cap. This means that if a student is taking 12 or more hours a semester, then they will only be required to pay a $30 maximum fee, Student Association President J.R. Love said.
When compared with the other colleges in the South Eastern Conference Mississippi State’s Union fee is among the lowest, if not the lowest, SA vice-president Lee Weiskopf said.
“I think the students will benefit from this because the price isn’t high, and the benefits of using The Union outweigh the cost,” said Lori Beth Shelton, a junior accounting major.
Although the idea of renovating The Union has gone on for several years, the idea of a Union fee did not come up until bids and cost for the project were increased to $22.5 million due to building costs caused by Hurricane Katrina, assistant vice-president for Student Affairs Bill Broyles said.
Since state funding cannot pay all the costs, ways of cutting things out of the project were evaluated and looked over in order to get the cost down, but there were problems getting enough cut from the project. Bonds were issued for Mississippi State to provide the $6 million of initial funds needed to build the project, he said.
“From what I understood, it was going to be more expensive to go back to the drawing board and have the architects and engineers come back in than it would be to find sufficient funding for the plan in place,” Weiskopf said.
Broyles said that in order to pay off the bonds, the university is going back to what was done in 1964 when the original Colvard Student Union was built. That is to have a Union fee that is assessed to students, to generate enough money to pay the loan payments on the bonds needed to provide the additional money for the completion of The Union.
“I think a lot of this plan’s success goes to that it gives the institute of higher learning something concrete and physical to look at,” Weiskopf said. “It gives them a beautiful new building to see what that money goes for.”
The money raised from the student Union fee will not only pay off The Union by providing the excess money needed to properly complete the renovations, but it will also roll into programming and maintenance. That way The Union can stay at a level that is user friendly to all, not only for the first five years but 15 to 20 years down the road, Weiskopf said.
He added that the fee will give students the opportunity to do more on campus, attend more concerts and provide CAB and Music Makers some stable funding since their budgets have been gutted over the past several years. Plus the Student Association will also benefit because they are moving into The Union, Weiskopf said.
The new Student Union is going through a complete renovation, something that hasn’t been done for 42 years, but the location and name will remain the same, Broyles said.
“I think it’s going to give the students something to be proud of,” Love said. “This Student Union is not a new concept at all. The SA has tried to get a new Student Union for several years.”
When the Union is redone, the ground floor will house retail stores geared toward students. The food court will move down to the ground floor with five stands opening. Chick-fil-A is the only vender as of now that will be back because MSU has a franchise with the company, but for the other vendors requests for proposals for restaurants will be evaluated and chosen.
The Dawg House and cyber cafe will open on the ground floor, he said.
The second floor will include a ballroom, several meeting rooms and a student art lounge. The Holmes Cultural Diversity Center will move into this floor along with the Old Main lounge. As for the third floor, it will provide space and meeting room for the nearly 300 student organizations at Mississippi State, Broyles said.
“I think students down the road can look back and be glad that students stepped up and made a conscious decision about this, Love said. “I think this shows what kind of student body we have as far as leaders on campus.”