Comfort. A place to sit with friends. Food. These are some of the biggest priorities on students’ wish lists for the new OSH building, said Shireen Ghorbani, spokesperson for Facilities Management.
The U is offering an online survey at oshstudy.com until Oct. 31 where students can voice their opinions on what they want and need in the facility.
“In some ways it really is the heart of campus, and so we want to think creatively and inclusively in our design,” Ghorbani said.
As an added incentive to getting their voices heard, students who finish the survey by the deadline and bring a screenshot or printed page of the finished poll to the ASUU office, located on the second floor of the Union, can get a 20-percent-off coupon to the Campus Store.
Ghorbani said while all large construction projects have some kind of a student input, whether in the form of ASUU representatives or smaller subcommittees, they wanted to get more options for feedback on OSH because of how many students use the building and because of how many complaints students tend to have about it.
“We always hear about OSH in our end-of-the-year surveys, so we’ve known for a long time that the building has a number of challenges,” Ghorbani said. “OSH was built in 1957, and at the time it really satisfied the needs for campus, but the ways we teach and learn have really changed since then.”
This is just the first step Facilities Managements is taking to include student input in the redesign project. In a few weeks the U will release a more refined survey asking people to prioritize their wants for the building in various areas. Additionally, there will be chalkboard block Us inside the building where students can write their recommendations.
The final step will be a town hall-style meeting, open and free for anyone to attend, where members of the U community can provide additional feedback to Facilities Management. The exact date is still to be determined, but Ghorbani said it will take place before finals. After collecting all of this data, the department will give it to the architects of the project to incorporate into the design.
Ghorbani said Facilities Management currently plans to begin construction right after commencement in Spring 2016.
@Ehmannky