Campus Photos Part 2: Student Union

Let's take a look at some changes they've made to the current Student Union. Some of this may be new to you, some of it may not.... all depends on how long you've been away! (all photos mine)

FIRST FLOOR

Gamer area with all the various consoles available. Another corner is ping pong, one corner is TV, etc. There were a lot of people just hanging around on a Tuesday night at 6 pm (as there should be)

EDIT: Here's a story from the University Press on the importance of the game area.

New Era barbershop (and I guess they also do nails). In the middle of the atrium were several tables of people playing dominoes.

STAIRWELL:

These aren't all that new (they're about a year or two old) but they're still great.

SECOND FLOOR

The hallway right off the stairs. The Wall of Former SGA Presidents has been moved here, new furniture was added and painting was done. FAU color trim is all over the interior of this building. OwlTV is still in the same criminally-undersized space - as is the UP - but for some reason the old SAVI (volunteer) office window says they're home to "FAU media."

The... Silver? Palm Room is now the COSO Clubhouse. According to the UP's OwlWatch blog, the $22,000 Clubhouse essentially functions to give student clubs some meeting and storage space. I guess that's good for E-Board meetings and such.

The Student Union FINALLY, FINALLY has connected its event calendar to a streaming television in the hallway... I pushed for this for YEARS.

This has been around for a couple years now I think... anyway, it's the Student Union computer lab.

Most of the doors got a shiny metallic paint. Looks sharp.

The Office of Greek Life is now the Student Involvement and Leadership Office which also houses the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life (I heard it's not called "Greek Life" anymore because, and I'm 100% serious about this, they didn't want people to confuse it with organizations of actual Greek students)

The giant oath that the Greek organizations had to sign is on display in the window.

For what it's worth, I asked a couple employees if they had heard anything about moving to a new Union in a couple years. They said they hadn't but there was some talk about converting the Grand Palm Room to a different kind of non-event space, another rumor about adding a second floor to the Live Oak building and a third rumor about putting up a building out by the outdoor lawn area.

Who knows. Renovating the current union is only a good idea if we're low on money, for instance if we get the $9M but not the money for the Admin/SO building renovations. Even then you're talking about a stopgap measure, really, because the building is pretty old and can only bear so many patches, to say nothing about the fact that it's in a location that's too far displaced from the center of student life (the Breezeway). The "heart of campus" needs to be in the "heart" of campus and it needs to be proportionate in size, as there are national standards for the gross square footage per student that we're probably not meeting. So while these changes look great - and they really do look great - there's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. We've maxed out. It's time for us to move on to bigger and better things.
 

GO OWLS!