Forming A More Perfect Union

Colleges and Universities A-Z Florida State University
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Forming a more perfect Union
FSU to build new student complex in current Oglesby location</p>

<p>Florida State University students will be saying goodbye to the Oglesby Student Union next year as the school prepares to replace the aging complex, according to university officials.</p>

<p>Mary Coburn, the vice president of student affairs at FSU, said the project will be divided into four phases costing an estimated $40 million each. She said construction on the first phase of the renovations, a five-story student activities building, is expected to begin in summer 2014 on the current sight of Moore Auditorium and will take two years to complete.</p>

<p>(Read the full article here%5B/quote">http://www.fsunews.com/article/20130122/FSVIEW1/130121029/Forming-more-perfect-Union))
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<p>I think this is amazing timing. Back during the Spring of 2010, FSU sent out a survey asking if students would be willing to pay more per credit hour (no number was specified) if the extra money was put towards funding a new Student Union building. Well, the vast majority of everyone that was enrolled then has either graduated, or will be graduating before this even starts, so the number of people that will know that said survey was met with overwhelmingly negative results will be minimal. </p>

<p>The Union does need updating, but I'd like to think that the University would make sure that they weren't going to be hit with continued budget cuts prior to undergoing nearly $200 million worth of construction. </p>

<p>That said, I hope that before this goes through, more information gets released. What is the new Union going to look like, for one.</p>

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<p>How would this impact entering students?</p>

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<p>I don’t think anyone really knows how it’s going to impact anyone. Aside from the part that’s scheduled to start in the summer of 2014, there’s really no timeline for this project yet. This could be a project that takes many years to complete. </p>

<p>I would think that really, the biggest impact would be the potential loss of say the union food court or Crenshaw Lanes, or different parts of the union, for a couple years at a time.</p>

<p>One thing that isn’t mentioned, would be any potential impacts that building the new Union would have on say, the campus mail system. The UPS store on campus could be out of commission for a while. I’m sure that they have some idea of how to handle it, if/when the time comes, but I’m not optimistic.</p>

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<p>What’s wrong w the Union that it would need updating? I honestly never go to the Union anymore but when I did it seemed fine. Rather put the money elsewhere plus didnt they recently update the union area w the repaving and palm trees? If anything the food court needs better options but that’s about it.
Seems like a bad time to start with this bc it’s not like it’s raining money at FSU and tuition is high enough as it is and it goes up every semester anyway.
If anything they should renovate some of the moldy rundown dorms on campus.</p>

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<p>Aside from the fact that it’s 50 years old, having been built in the early 60s, and is way too small to handle the number of students that FSU has (I believe it was built to accommodate around 20k students, not the 40k or so that FSU has now), it’s always been okay to me. Nothing spectacular, but since I’m not living there (and really only “visit” while walking to/from class, except for an occasional stop at Subway or the bowling alley, or whatever), it’s not a huge deal to me. </p>

<p>I do think that we need better options food wise, but it’s not like the university has the room to add a bunch of restaurants to the Union without making the food court multiple stories, and I’m sure that wouldn’t go over well anyway. But hell, it took them an entire year to open the Subway. When Salad Creations was going in, it took 6 months before it opened. They added a Papa John’s when there’s one on the corner of Stadium and Tennessee (just that the one in the Union offers pizza by the slice, which 3 slices costs pretty much the same as a whole pizza anyway!). If they wanted to add better food choices, they’d probably get everything finalized about the time an entire new Union could be built. Not to mention, the intelligent people that run the Dining service thought it was a smart idea to cut back nearly every location’s hours this semester, including making the Denny’s All-Nighter close at 2:30am (oddly enough, Denny’s is known for their breakfast menu, and yet, they are closed from 2:30 to 10:30am. Like I said: intelligent). </p>

<p>Yeah, they did just finish a sort of touch-up to the Union this past summer. Which I wasn’t a big fan of, but sort of accepted as I guess a consolation prize for the people that pushed getting an entire new Union back a few years ago. Apparently, that money will be completely or nearly completely wasted. </p>

<p>Oddly enough, they are (or at least, were) planning to completely demolish and rebuild both Deviney and Dorman within the next couple of years. Last I heard, that was still in the plan, but of course, this is FSU, so for all I know they canceled or postponed that. </p>

<p>Here’s the thing. The proposed increase isn’t nearly as bad as the yearly increase in tuition we see anyway. It’s not the $2/credit hour that irks me- that’s only about $30/semester. It’s that they asked the student body back in the Spring of 2010 about this, and the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Now, they’ve decided to just go forward with this, without consulting the student body again.</p>

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<p>The Union is functionally obsolete. I doubt it is fully ADA compliant with all its stairs, narrow outdoor walkways, old bathrooms, etc. It is difficult for anyone in a wheelchair or for someone with vision disabilities to navigate the present hodgepodge of mixed up buildings on different levels. There is certainly an element too of keeping up with other universities who have new showplace student unions. The present union is terrible when it is hot or cold outside because so much of it requires people to have to be outside in un-airconditioned walkways and patios. I’ve been to functions at the union when it is freezing and raining outside and portable heaters were used to try to keep cold wet people from freezing. FSU’s student union needs to be replaced.</p>