assistant-news@dailylobo.com
@ChloeHenson5
The Graduate and Professional Student Association will begin gathering feedback from students regarding the construction of a new wellness center at UNM.
James Foty, executive assistant for the president at GPSA, updated the council on its plans to build the center at a meeting Saturday. Foty said plans to construct a new center had been in the works for several years.
“They were ready to build the building. They had it planned and all that,” he said. “But the regents killed it because of the economic downturn in 2009.”
According to an article by the Daily Lobo, ASUNM and GPSA proposed renovations to the recreation center in 2008, and presented the idea to the Board of Regents in 2009. But because the board deemed the facility to have not served an academic purpose, the board planned to allot student fees instead of taxpayer dollars to the project. However, the board decided not to proceed because student interest and support in planning for use and paying for the project was not strong enough.
Foty said the regents are now reviving efforts to construct the wellness center. The center would function as more than a recreational center for students, he said.
“The new (recreation) center would also include Student Health and Counseling, so it would be a true wellness center,” he said. “The idea is to create an iconic building on campus that would be attractive and would act as an aide for recruiting new students.”
Chief of Staff Matthew Rush said GPSA was approached by the administration to design the wellness center during the summer.
Rush said construction for the project probably will not start for another few years.
“I believe the aim this year is to really get the student feedback on it by next semester,” he said. “Then over the summer we’ll start really developing the plan. And I believe next year is when they’ll make a decision and try to figure out when to fund it.”
Foty said GPSA developed a plan for the new structure that includes four phases. He said the first phase will be to construct a new recreational center in A Lot. The second and third phases involve expanding and renovating Johnson Center, while the fourth entails expansion of the Center’s pool, he said.
“The details are not worked out yet, they’re not in the actual design phases,” he said. “They’re just moving along. They’re going.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Although the total cost of the project is unknown, the budget for the first phase could be as much as $75 million, Foty said. He said GPSA will hold forums sometime during the next three weeks to discuss the project, but he said there is still not a particular date set for the forums.
United Way Campaign
GPSA will also work with United Way, a nonprofit philanthropic national organization, to raise funds for the University.
Rush said training for volunteers to raise funds will begin next week, and campaigning will start at the beginning of next month.
“The United Way campaign starts Nov. 4 and will run through January,” he said.
One of the campaigns GPSA is pushing this year is for people to sign up to donate small sums through their paychecks, Rush said.
“One of the great things that they do is, people within UNM, staff faculty students, can have (donations) taken out of their salary,” he said.
Rush said GPSA hopes to raise money to support scholarships and grants for UNM graduate students.
“We’d like to see as much funds as we can raise for graduate students,” he said. “One of the major things we were concentrating on was using funding from the United Way to increase scholarships and grants for students.”
