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Students should help design ASU's future

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Grant
Klinzman

ASU is about to enter the mega-university version of a midlife crisis. Our fun-loving days of ol' are quickly being replaced with biodesign institutes and a "research-oriented" environment.

Our party school days have become a faint memory, as visions of National Merit scholars now dance in our heads. Soon to be gone are our laughably dilapidated fraternities to make way for what the University hopes will be student recreation areas. Apparently, fraternities no longer provide enough recreation. How about student parking areas instead?

With a projected future enrollment of roughly the population of Detroit, perhaps we should begin working on a better plan to find parking for the cars that inevitably will find their way to campus. While I would love more recreation area, maybe we could instead expand the Student Recreation Center to accomplish the same thing without taking up more land for it. Hmm, an SRC expansion sounds vaguely familiar ...

Whatever this land ends up being used for, it is only a small part of what is changing on the ASU campus right now with our "Master Plan." This plan is essential in ensuring that the results of our University midlife crisis better resemble a cherry red 2004 Z06 Corvette than a rusting 1965 Ford Mustang fixer-upper.

Unfortunately, the student population has been taking a woefully small part in engineering this plan, despite attempts by the planners to involve us. Not including the one last night - only about five students attended the two meetings that the Ayers/ Saint/Gross developers have held in order to get student input. These meetings were set up so that the planners can find out what students want for the University.

Student contribution at these meetings is incredibly important in setting up the final Master Plan that we are trying to achieve. With the observation phase of the plan quickly coming to an end, it is now more important than ever that we start making our voices heard.

If you take a look around ASU right now, you will notice that we are a nice microcosm of Phoenix. We have a perplexing mix of buildings on campus. From Old Main's brick façade to the giant ice cube known as Lattie Coor residential hall to the birthday cake music building, ASU is the perfect example of every phase that this city has gone through. Without a Master Plan, our campus has been influenced by every architectural fad to rear its ugly head in the last century. I am not trying to say some of buildings are ugly, but ... actually, yes I am. Some buildings are plain ugly.

In addition to the physical aspects of a Master Plan, ASU also is going through changes directed by the University Design Team. These changes will decide where some degree programs will go, which is just as important to ASU's midlife crisis as the look of our campus is. There are a good number of recommendations being thrown around to move and consolidate programs.

Might I suggest moving Public Programs into the Business building when it is finished moving into the Tempe center? Doing this would make space in Stauffer for a student media complex. It could get The State Press out of the dungeon and help combine the rest of ASU student media into one centralized space. This, combined with a Public Programs move, would clear up spaces in a number of buildings, including Coor hall, which would give the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences some much-needed extra room. These changes are just the tip of the iceberg of ways we can improve ASU.

While I can sit here and write these suggestions, it would be much more effective if we could get a contingent of students who are willing to participate in shaping our school.

Students need to get more involved in the Master Plan process. Designing the plan will be about as easy as smuggling a non-Sodexho, Marriott sanctioned cookie into the Memorial Union. But it is a process that students can and need to have a voice in.

It's our "Great American University" - let's help determine its direction.

Grant Klinzman is a journalism junior. Reach him at grant.klinzman@asu.edu.


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