The official ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony for the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union will take place on Friday, March 7. Although a celebratory moment for many San Diego State faculty, staff, students and visitors, for many people this commencement ceremony has lost its splendor. It’s been shadowed by the incompleteness of the building that was noticeable on the first day of school. Students expected many of their favorite restaurants and amenities to be finished on the first day of the spring semester. Instead, they walked through construction and wet paint drying on the rails of the Union. This isn’t what many students pictured as their first glimpse and the lavish food court areas we were promised were still under construction.
The 206,000-square-foot building with its many amenities couldn’t shine properly with the transparency of construction noise and workers right before students’ eyes. SDSU should have waited to properly present the Union until the grand dedication ceremony in March. [quote]Welcome halfway home, Aztecs.[/quote]
The opening of this facility is monumental. However, it’s disappointing this “let’s get the ball rolling” mentality couldn’t have been postponed until the Union was a finished product, which would have deterred the process of the spring semester. In fact, it would have officially given students time to appreciate the work of Associated Students for making the union a reality. Nonetheless, they’ll have to wait until March to get the full picture of this state-of-the-art space they missed at the start of the semester.
This building holds many highlights, but it also holds many missing links that don’t paint a complete picture in the mind of many students walking through the arches. Some of these missing links were the absence of Chipotle, The Habit Burger and Oggi’s Pizza Express in the bottom level. This was disappointing, as I laid eyes on the vacant spaces where these new eateries should have been. Students hoping to get a bite to eat in the Union will have to wait until March to eat up their money’s worth of food. It does have the appeal of a shiny new toy for many students that has masked the reality of incompleteness that this space provides. Lets hope this shiny new toy feeling doesn’t give way to impatience as March comes around.
It’s a brilliant strategy to hide the unassembled student union with “The First 9 Days” of events in partnership with the Aztec Student Union Board committee. It truly was a “Wordless Wednesday” on the first day of the spring semester when I realized I would have to wait until March for the union to be 100 percent complete. Now, even though it will be completed in one month, that’s one month’s worth of waiting and a constant reminder that something is missing from the Union experience.
I went out to find the voices of disappointed students as they recollect their first impressions of the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union.
“I didn’t like the fact that the student union wasn’t done by the time school started,” said psychology freshman Denyse Martinez. “I was looking forward to the new restaurants to go eat and meet people.”
The Union is meant to represent the campus living room. However, the Lee and Frank Goldberg Courtyard is missing the rest of its counterparts and services that surround the heart of the Union. It’s been a long time coming for the grand dedication ceremony, and I hope the dedication week from March 3-8 will make up for the irrecoverable feeling many of us felt on Jan. 22.
“I feel that the student union fell a bit short in the fact that not everything was completed before it was opened,” microbiology sophomore Christina Huerta said. “I feel that the opening should have included the opening of every part of the building.”
There’s room for improvement in the next months to come and I expect the project to go smoothly without any delays. However, I hope students give their input and demand the university provide the resources they truly want in the union, instead of having empty areas.
These two Aztec women weren’t alone in their sentiments. It’s apparent that there was something missing on the first day of school–talk about a misnomer. “Welcome Home?” I’ll believe it when I see it.
