In a move to let students have more input on renovations to campus, Oklahoma Christian University gave the student body the ability to vote on how $275,000 was to be spent. On Nov. 21, more than 600 students voted to use the money to reboot the cafeteria.
“I think it is awesome that they picked the caf and I believe it is the right place for the money to go,” Kurt Hermanson, Vice President of United Dining, said. “It will really add to the new dining experience. Right now the caf is just so old-school and nothing has been done to it in a long time, and it is time for a change.”
Junior Garret Marshall, who voted for a better cafeteria, said he already has dreams of what he would like the new cafeteria to look like.
“When they construct the new caf I would like to see more space,” Marshall said. “I know that especially on Mondays at the caf, it is always cramped. More places to sit would be great as well–better tables and chairs since the ones we have sometimes fall apart.”
According to Marshall, the cafeteria won the Thrive fundraising campaign because the need for the student body for a better dinning experience was greater than the other projects.
“The caf is pretty essential,” Marshall said. “Everyone has to eat and everyone has to go to the caf sometime, however, I do think that some of them were destined to loose. For an example, renovating the science department for nursing, which is a big major, but I just don’t think everyone would vote for something that is just not in their major.”
Thrive: The Complete Campaign is a new program that sets to change students’ college experience by boosting campus renovations, and it came about to meet the growing needs of the school.
Thrive began on June 1, 2014 with goals to raise $30 million “to achieve approximately 30 near term, high impact, strategically relevant projects” by May 31, 2017, according to its website.
“Thrive is a three year campaign,” Will Blanchard, Director of Advancement Operations said. “It is comprehensive and it is focused and its goal is to raise money for projects that will impact the students directly and the student experience. We want to bring more students here, drive greater prestige for our program, and greater revenues that we can invest in other programs in hopes to make living and working on campus better.”
According to Blanchard, it has always been the intention of administration to have student input on Thrive decisions. The 2014-2017 campaign will be open to the students from the beginning to the end.
“When we are raising money, we want to do it for the students, but it is really hard to find good ways to engage with the students and let them know what is going on and give them a voice back as to what they want and what they need,” Blanchard said.
On its first year, the campaign started with six projects: Caf Reboot, Coffee Shop, Fitness Equipment Overhaul, Heritage Health Sciences, Apartment Refresh and Ethos. Students at Oklahoma Christian were given $275,000 to decide which of the six projects they would like to accomplish first.
“It is been challenging figuring out how to do something that interests most of the students,” Blanchard said. “We thought the best way to engage students was to actually put money into the hands of the students and see where it goes. We had donors who decided to put $275,000 into the hands of the students and let them decide where it [would go].”
The $3 million project to renovate the cafeteria could turn out to be more expensive. So far, more than $2 million was raised to fund the renovation.
“The total cost may end up being $4 million,” Blanchard said. “In an effort to save money we don’t want to cut corners, which could ruin the dining experience. We are also working on accomplishing other goals.”
The new cafeteria is going to be on the northwest corner of the Student Center with windows overlooking the Lawson Commons.
“We do want to keep the cost as low as possible,” Hermanson said. “Our students and staff in the kitchen are excited about the caf and trying something new. With the new caf, it would be nice to have glass so you can see outside, new serving lines, televisions, booths.”
There are plans for the construction of the cafeteria to begin within the next calendar year.
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