Miami Student

Issue date: 8/28/07 Section: Campus

Students gather in Shriver Center for After Dark's movie night. Administrators have said Shriver currently serves more as a university center than a student center.

With plans for a new student center underway, future Miami University students will finally have a building to call solely their own.

The student center committee-consisting of faculty, administrators and students-had its first meeting May 9, and has been working since to get plans under way.

"We have broadened our task again," said Robert Keller, university architect and campus planner. "We are in the process of defining what a student center is, and until we've done that we really can't select a site."

According to Executive Assistant to the President Stephen Snyder, the program consultants who were chosen who have already been on campus and understand Miami.

The committee also selected a national design firm, WTW Architects, based in Pittsburgh, and Snyder said last week the committee selected BHDP, a local architect group based in Cincinnati, to help with the project. He added that both companies have done dozens of student centers around the country and bring great expertise to the project. Two weeks ago, a kick-off meeting was held with the student center committee and the consultants.

"This is going to be a great working committee and the members of the committee really participated a lot," Snyder said.

He added that the committee and consultants expect to have a report to present to the board of trustees in February 2008.

Snyder said that the general consensus of the committee was the desire to involve students in the process.

"I would argue that we don't really have a student center, we have a university center," said Susan Mosley-Howard, dean of students and associate vice president of student affairs. "We want this student center to send a signal to our students, an intentional signal, that this is really their place."

According to Snyder, this desire stems from a decision made in 1957 to clearly label the Shriver Center a university center. It was meant to send a deliberate message to the community that it was a place for faculty, students, staff and community members.

Jack Williams, senior project architect and manager at Miami, said starting next week there will be a group of consultants coming to campus to have focus groups to decide what questions will be put in a survey to send to students in order to gauge their goals for the center.

"I think it's important that people know we don't have preconceived ideas of what will be in there," Williams said. "It's going to evolve."

Students can get involved by attending the open session Sept. 20 from noon to 2 p.m. in the Shriver Center Heritage Room.

"We've made it clear to the consultants we really want student involvement," Keller said.

Though the center won't be completed for the current Miami student body, Mosley-Howard encourages students to get involved.

"This is a legacy that this current student body can leave for others," Mosley-Howard said.

Many current students are excited about the chance to participate in this change to the Oxford campus.

"It is great that Miami wants the input of the students so that the new center can better cater to the needs of the students," said Morgan Buckey, a Miami sophomore.

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