Students volunteer to pay for better UNLV rec facilities

Jennifer Knight

Friday, Feb. 28, 2003 | 10:04 a.m.

UNLV students want their student fees more than doubled so they can have a better place to hang out.

Student senators at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, unanimously approved the increase this week.

The one-time student fee will go up in increments, from $60 this year to $155 in 2006. The plan must first be approved by the Board of Regents.

The fees are expected to contribute to a $91 million renovation of the school's out-of-date student union and recreation center. Students hope the result will be a more welcoming campus environment for the mostly commuter campus.

"People don't stay on campus, so we're trying to get them to stay on campus," said Peter Goatz, a student senator who backed the renovation project. "In the union, there is not room to meet, there is not room to study and there is not room to converse."

The fee hike was backed by 54 percent of 3,000 students who were polled about the proposed renovations. Of those polled, 10 percent had never even visited the Moyer Student Union and 62 percent had never been to the McDermott Complex rec center.

The renovations will be totally funded by student money, not state money.

The $39 million renovation of the Moyer Student Union would expand the computer room, the game room and the ballroom. It would also add a coffee bar, a cyber cafe and a 300-seat theater.

The top items requested for the $52 million renovation of the McDermott Complex are a juice bar, a weight room, a sauna, a climbing wall and two pools -- one for recreation and the other for swimming laps.

Sunny Gittens, UNLV's director of student involvement and activities, said the renovation plans were a long time coming.

"The history behind this is for multiple years students have been complaining about the size and quality of the student union and recreation center," Gittens said.

The drafting of renovations plan would begin immediately after approval by the regents. The work is expected to be completed by 2007, Gittens said.

Gittens said that juniors and seniors who pay the fees but are scheduled to graduate before the renovations are complete will get extended use of the facilities after they graduate.

She said many of the students who asked for the changes were juniors and seniors.

"I think they are looking at this as an opportunity to create a legacy," Gittens said.