Director Chris Cole gives me the scoop of what the new union has to offer!

December 6,2010.

I met with Chris Cole, who is the university union director, and he gave me a detailed explanation of about the new union.

The New Union has been a long time in the making, since late 2004. Student Government Association passed a resolution saying that the University should look into building a new union. Since that time, there have been two votes with the student population to approve the project. The idea of the new union has gone to the state system, as well as the board of governors and trustee's of SRU.

"We finally broke ground this last July", says Cole.



Dr.Chris Cole speaks about the new university union project.



The new union has been a project design to meet the needs of current and future students at SRU. The current union was built in 1970, when SRU had a population of about 3000 students, and has not changed at all. The mechanical system of the building has, and its location, has led the university to building a completely new union. The current facilities location and age would put on a limit on renovating it. Students chose in a referendum vote, to build a completely new union instead of renovating the current one.



The New Union gives the campus and its organizations new office spaces. The offices will include a office suite area, for the advisors of the organizations. There will be new more modern meeting spaces for students at SRU.

A great thing the new union will have is a new food court area, which is wonderful! Students get tired of the same ole Rocky's grille. Slippery Rock will be the first college franchise of Quaker Steak and Lube. There will also be a Starbucks!

There will be a new ballroom that can be divided into three separate spaces. It could either be used as the large room, like the MPR or it could be split into three separate rooms. The thing that i was most impressed with is the Movie Theater built in the new union. This will be very convenient for students who don’t have transportation to Butler to see new films.
"A Movie Theater has always been the number one thing,on the wish list for students",Cole.

Everything in the current university union will be moving to the new union, except for the Radio station because of it cant move without paying a large amount of money to the federal communications commission for re-licensing.

Chris Cole's office is located in the upstairs of the union, room 208