Every University of Oregon student will pay an extra $67 per term for the next 30 years, starting this fall, contributing to the EMU renovation.

The EMU renovation project was passed in winter 2012 with 54 percent voting in favor of the project, along with a $95 million mortgage and a pay-it-forward plan for students two years prior to the completion of the building.

“We are actively fundraising to raise $5 million in private donations to support the project. The remaining cost will be funded by student fees including existing student building fees and a new EMU facility fee,” according to the EMU website.

EMU Director Laurie Woodward said the EMU has received donations from some private donors, including two international students last year.

Currently the project has raised $1.5 million, according to the EMU website.

“The fee would last 30 years,” EMU Board Chair and ASUO Senate Miles Sisk said. “However, the EMU is working on measuring by increased donation, private donation and increasing revenues in the building to perhaps shorten the amount of time that fee has to be in place.”

According to Woodward, the EMU is ready for a renovation.

“You can see the brick wall crumbling and bricks falling out of places,” Woodward said. “(The EMU) is an old building getting made new again, and hopefully it will a building for 50 years when we are done with it.”

“The EMU renovation is so much more than just a new building,” Sisk added. “The EMU is not just a building where people go, but the EMU is a home for student activities that is beyond the academic, beyond the classroom… With this renovation we are going to be able to offer more opportunity, new opportunity and better opportunity that the building at the currency is not able to provide.”

Sophomore Candace Joyner described the EMU as the heart of the university.

“It’s sad to see fees rise,” she said. “But it is about build up the heart of campus. I think it’s going to be worth it.”

For Althea Seloover, EMU Vice Chair and EMU representative, who has spent her four years of college working in the EMU, the renovation is personal.

“It’s a really incredible legacy to have, to be able to see a new building happens,” Seloover said. “The fact the this is the building that is going to foster student population that far outgrew that building over a decade ago. It’s a part of the legacy of being a student and contributing to the community that you are a part of.”

However, the additional fee stirred up some controversy among other students.

Senior Joseph Tu wasn’t aware of the additional fee that has been added in his tuition bill this year. “It’s unfortunate in this case because I will be graduated next term, I won’t be able to experience the new EMU at all,” Tu said. “But I think it’s for the greater good.”

“I know I have to pay more, I just didn’t know we have additional fee” junior Loghan Anderson said. “It’s really not that much compared to the tuition that we pay, but I wish they would have ask or inform more about that fee.”

Within the three years after the referendum passed, the mandatory fees have rose $164 per student per term, including the new fee for Recreation Center Bond and the new EMU facility fee, according to the Oregon University System.

@@source:

http://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/dept/budget/files/AY11-12-Fbk_final_03-14-11_reinstatement-OSU-fees_v8b_corrected.pdf
http://registrar.uoregon.edu/costs/tuition-fees?term=Fall+2014&r=Resident&sc=Undergraduate&credits=@@