Renovation of our student center was an incredible project to undertake.

 Luckily I was ambitous enough to not only start the renovation, but to work through the

many challenges that would arise to see progress that previous attempts hadn't.

 

When my term as student body president began, I thought that I could come up with an idea for changes in our student center and have very few road blocks.  It seemed easy!  We already had funding for the changes and seemed to have good relationships with various administrators.  The summer began with spending hours walking through the student center, hand drawing various floorplans, and reviewing previous president's research and sketches.  I saw very little progress through the summer.  

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I quickly found out that administration wasn't too excited to put another large project on their plate.

Many had seen student body presidents in the past work through the same process taking up their valuable time only to have their term end with no progress - or support for actual changes.  It didn't take long to realize that having money was a big step, but not the most important.

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Through the next semester I learned to be very proactive in steps that would lead toward progress including encouraging regular meetings with administration and architects.  Despite feeling as if the project was progressing I quickly realized that feeling good myself didn't mean administration had a similar feelings.  I was thwarted with various campus and higher education politics and policy.  

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When negotiations were about to break down and I was losing sleep from the stress and worry

Dean Jason Ramirez become an invaluable tool.  He worked closely with myself and Vice President Tippets and has much more experience in higher education negotiations.  What was discovered is that we were near the same vision, but we were not communicating on the same page.  I worked late nights throughout the weekend in order to share a written proposal with a vision and mission statement along with specific priorities adn anticipated way to spend the budget.  That seemed to be the catch 22  and we were able to progress from there.

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The following months would entail meetings focused on more intricate details and working through timing.  This was a neat process, but again challenging trying to work through politics.  There were various meetings that I had to work very hard to have the influence that our funds and students deserved.  I learned that you can't win every battle, that people have varying needs that had to be addressed before an agreement can form, but that succeeding on a large-scale project.  I also got a good taste of what a career project would be like and the stress that come along with it.  The Student Center Renovation turned out to be a great success in the end - that is what really matters to me.