The Collegian

Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Melissa Plond

Almost two years after its opening, the Grewcock Student Union isn't quite finished.

High tech equipment estimated at $100,000 was left out of the Grewcock Student Union during construction because of budget constraints.

"We just ran out of money," said Ted Matko, the college's director of technical and media services.

Matko estimated that $100,000 was cut from the original technology budget in favor of hard construction costs.

"Once we got the preliminary costs back we had to do some design engineering," Vice President of Administration Rich Péwé said. "Our goal was better quality in furnishings rather than too much."

Matko said the equipment left out during construction includes a sound system and video projector for the stage area in A.J.'s Café, a video projector for the private dining room, and a sound system, lights and a video projector for the stage in the general dining area.

"I wasn't going to lower the quality of what we put in to meet budget, so we had to go without. That's why we have solid equipment throughout now," Matko said.

Péwé said the college was wary of authorizing any extra unnecessary spending in order to complete the North Campus Project, which included the Moss Family Laboratory Wing addition to Strosacker Science Center addition and Grewcock Student Union, and eventually cost more than $25 million.

"To spend more than we could would have been irresponsible, but to not set it up so you couldn't add hardware later would have been silly, too," he said.

Construction on the union was engineered so that the equipment could be added later - wiring and hanging bars, for example, were installed above the stage in the dining area.

Matko said that he plans on requesting the money to purchase the equipment in the next budget cycle.

"We put the infrastructure in place, all we need is the hardware," Péwé said, "but it's not necessarily something that's been expressed as a major need."

Senior Winnie Gardiner, director of the Student Activities Board, said the SAB was looking into purchasing new sound equipment of its own to fill the need. Student Federation and student groups such as the team behind Relay for Life have used the SAB's current ancient sound equipment in the past.

"I just don't think it works into our budget yet," Gardiner said.

Last year, the band that was hired for the Garden Party charged extra for bringing their own lights and sound equipment to the dining room stage.

Junior Paul Schmitt has been making up for A.J.'s Café's lack of equipment with his personal sound system this semester. One of his hobbies is running a home recording studio, so he carts his sound equipment up the hill for every Coffeehouse.

"Last year's Coffeehouse equipment was horrible, we were using stuff from the 80s," he said.

He said he spent $400 on a new 350-watt monitor, a stand and three vocal microphones to meet the space requirements.

"I knew that people would really enjoy it if the sound quality was great," he said. "I wasn't planning on buying it, but I'll use it for years and years."

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