After the $5,200 Downtown Student Center sat vacant for much of its 2009-2010 lease, the student government opted not to renew the initiative this year and will instead be focusing its town-gown efforts elsewhere.
The lease on the 130 E. Beaver Ave. property expired July 31, but University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) officials say the decision to close its doors was made several months ago.
UPUA first purchased the office’s 12-month lease in June 2009, using funds left over from its 2008-2009 budget. At the time, former UPUA President Gavin Keirans said he hoped to begin using it in September 2009, but the office didn’t open its doors until January.
Following its opening, an audit was conducted by UPUA to determine whether the initiative was mismanaged, and the investigation eventually found that the office’s delayed opening was the result of a “lack of initial planning.”
When UPUA President Christian Ragland took office this year, he said he didn’t enter into his term as president intending to use the Downtown Student Center.
Ragland (senior-political science) said he received a letter about renewing the lease shortly after he began his term in April but is unsure of the exact deadline of when the final decision needed to be made.
Given the “hiccups” UPUA encountered during the last assembly as a result of not having a specific plan for the office, Ragland said he was hesitant to pursue the initiative again this year.
“If you were to do it again, you’d have to have a proper plan with a proper structure and know what you want to do with it,” Ragland said. “Until we have a plan and a vision and a structure for it, we weren’t going to go through with it.”
UPUA Chairwoman of the Assembly Jessica Pelliciotta said the student government’s outlook on the office was solidified when it wasn’t included in the group’s budget for the 2010-2011 year, which was approved April 15.
“That’s when you really see what initiatives are really important to the executive who initiates it and the assembly who can then amend it,” Pelliciotta (senior-political science) said. “By neither branch including it in the budget, it showed that UPUA thought it wasn’t the best decision to continue the lease.”
Pelliciotta said UPUA didn’t direct the funds that would otherwise have been put towards the office toward a specific project in this year’s budget.
Before she was sworn in as UPUA Vice President this year, Colleen Smith worked on the Downtown Student Center initiative during her time as Governmental Affairs Chairwoman.
Smith (junior-history) said the office was part of an effort to improve town-gown relations, but UPUA will look to achieve that goal through other means this year, namely through trying to add a non-voting student member to the State College Borough Council.
Pelliciotta also said UPUA will be reaching out to off-campus students and organizations like the Off-Campus Student Union.
“This time last year, we thought a physical presence in the borough would have to bridge the gap,” Smith said. “But this year we’re kind of taking a different approach.”