UA gets students' opinions on rebuilding Union

Ryan A. Mihalyi Arizona Daily Wildcat The University of Arizona has commissioned a survey to collect students' opinions on their willing ness to pay a student fee to build Student Union. The $9,000 cost of the survey was split between the Memorial Stuedent Union and the UA Associated Student s Bookstore.

Dean of Students Melissa Vito said the university decided to conduct a survey to determine whether students would be willing to contribute money toward a new union.

Field Market Research of Tucson is the agency the University of Arizona hired to do the project, she said.

Vito said the Memorial Student Union and the UA Associated Students Bookstore are splitting the costs for the survey, which costs about $9,000.

"It's a pretty good bargain," Vito said. She said conducting the survey by telephone is less expensive than other methods like direct mailing.

About 500 students were contacted last week, Vito said. The results will be available to the Dean of Students Office next week.

"How we are going to pay for it is a package of different kinds of financing," Vito said of how a new Student Union would be funded.

Vito said she hopes some of the funds could be raised through general fund-raising or other efforts that do not involve student contributions.

Despite recent concerns raised by students regarding additional fees, Vito said there is a "national model" for using student fees to fund projects.

"Most schools that do major renovations do it through student fees," she said. "We have a different campus tradition here."

Vito added that students would be the "significant beneficiary" of a new Student Union project.

Nazilla Afshari, environmental science junior, said she may support a fee if she knew more about it.

"It depends on how much it is. If it is for good improvements, maybe," Afshari said.

Elasha Salzgaber, pre-architecture freshman, had a similar feeling on the matter.

"It depends on what the changes were, if I thought the changes were justified or needed," she said.

Kimberly Lesperance, political science senior, said, "I don't think I'd have a problem with it.

"I'd rather put the money into that than the recreation center," Lesperance said. "I think more people use the Student Union."

Stefan Klinkowski, political science senior, expressed concern about the use of student fees.

"If I had to pay for a Student Union on top of the Rec Center, I don't know," he said. "They'll tack on another fee for everything they want to build whether we use it or not."

Pinghua Qin, graduate student in teaching English as a second language, had a firmer view on the issue.

"No, because I don't use it much. I don't have time for activities like those," Qin said.

Vito said telephone surveys of students are a fairly common practice among universities.

"I felt it was important for us to do our homework," Vito said. "It's important for me as Dean of Students to know how students are doing."

"If you look at the different ways to collect information, this is the best way to do it and it is objective, because it's not us doing it," Vito said.