Members of student government and other academic officials are advocating renovations to make the student center more appealing to students and to bring Dixie State College closer to becoming a university.
Student Body President Dewey Denning, a senior communication major from Iona, Idaho, said he and other members of student government have been throwing around the idea of an improved student center since he was elected, but they are just now beginning the initial planning stages of the project.
Denning said the student center currently feels more like a convention center than a place for students.
"Students don't really want to come hang out here," he said.
He said compared to the student centers at other Utah colleges, the Gardner Center falls short.
"We want to have a four-year campus culture here," Denning said. "So if, for example, when prospective students come to visit the campus they see an awesome student center, and the campus has more of a university feel to it, they will be more likely to come to DSC."
Denning said the new student center would ideally connect to the Old Gym and the soon-to-be-built Centennial Commons Building.
Denning said he has been researching the link between student involvement on campuses and student retention for his senior capstone project. There is direct link between student involvement on campus and retention, he said.
The renovations are still in the planning stage, so there have not been concrete decisions about the details of the renovations. Ideas include a bowling alley, a theater, a larger auditorium, a more comfortable and spacious student lounge, and other ideas designed to create an atmosphere that will keep students on campus.
Cassidy Greenwood, a freshman general education major from Layton, said she thinks a movie theater and a better student lounge are both good Ideas.
"I like it [an improved student center]," she said. "I think it would get more people involved in school activities," she said.
Caitlyn Latini, a freshman health occupations major from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said: "Right now I feel like something is missing on campus. It doesn't feel like students want to spend any time here. It's hard to meet people."
Plans for improving the student center are still in the tentative research phase, and there are several important steps that must be taken before the idea can become a reality.
One of the first steps is gathering student feedback on the idea. At a student senate meeting on Jan. 25, Denning asked student senators to collect student feedback on the idea and be ready to endorse or reject the idea to the president's executive council. In an effort to gather student feedback, there is a survey and open discussion board at dixiesunlink.com.
Denning said one of the major components of making this decision revolves around acquiring the necessary funding for the building. He said the money would come in the form of a bond, basically the same thing as a loan. If this bond were acquired from a bonding institution, it would allow for construction to begin sooner than otherwise possible.
In order to get the bond, DSC officials would have to show the bank that they were going to allocate a certain amount of student fees toward repaying the loan every year until the bond is repaid.
There are a couple of options available for securing the student fee money for this project. Denning said one of the options they have been looking into is redirecting student fees from other areas. He said they are looking at moving some of the fees allocated for IT support over to funding for the student center. Denning said that every other college in Utah uses tuition dollars to fund the IT support for Web Banner Services, but at DSC that funding still comes from student fees. While paying for IT support with tuition dollars would free up funds for the student center project, the exact amount of money has yet to be determined.
Dean of Students Del Beatty said students and student government have most of the responsibility for allocating student fees. Tuition dollars, on the other hand, are allocated by the president's executive council.
The other possibility is an increase in student fees. Denning said funding would most likely be comprised of reallocated student fees and a slight increase to the existing fees. Denning said an increase, if necessary, would most likely be in the range of an extra $50 to $100 dollars per student per year.
Denning said the next step in this process is to formally submit the idea to the executive council in order to secure approval. If school officials have signed off on the idea, the next step is to create a proposal.
Randy Judd, executive director of auxiliary services, said a proposal requires hiring an architect to create a possible design for the renovations and generate an estimate of how much the work would cost. He said creating this proposal could cost as much as $100,000.
Judd said auxiliary services has enough money set aside to fund the creation of a proposal, but they don't want to commit the money unless there is a guarantee that DSC students and officials will allocate the necessary student fee dollars. He said auxiliary services spent about $50,000 four or five years ago on a proposal for improved student housing, but the funding never came and the expensive proposal is now sitting under a couch.
The money for both the previous proposal and this possible proposal for a student center comes from the profits made by the bookstore. Despite what many students believe, the bookstore doesn't make much profit, and most of what it does make gets reinvested in DSC in the form of these proposals and other things, Judd said.
Denning said one of his concerns is that students will not be willing to pay extra student fees for a building that current students may or may not ever have the chance to use.
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