Collegiate Times

University Unions and Student Activities was assessed by outside consultants this week as the group fights to hold operations steady in the face of budget cuts.

Three consultants from the Association of College Unions International spent three days evaluating UUSA, which operates Squires Student Center, Johnston Student Center, the Graduate Life Center and War Memorial Chapel.

The consultants were asked to visit Virginia Tech after UUSA was forced to cut student employment and reduce programs for student activities.

Ed Spencer, vice president for student affairs, arranged for consultants to visit Blacksburg through ACUI's College Union and Student Activities Evaluation Program. The three consultants' three-day visit cost the university between $7,500 and $9,500.

"In the case of UUSA, they've had in recent years some real difficult times with facilities and budget issues," Spencer said. "In all of my years here, looking back, I had a number of questions about structure, organizations, facilities, services, programs, staffing - the whole gamut."

Julie Walters-Steele, director of UUSA, hopes to use the study to lobby for an increased budget.

"One of the things they will look at and be able to help us with is assessing our level of resources compared with peer organizations," Walters-Steele said. "We feel like we need extra resources, but an independent assessment carries more weight."

Spencer hopes the consultants identify ways to shift money within UUSA.

"They may say 'you're over-invested in this area, and you should shift resources to this area,'" Spencer said.

The consultants were student union professionals from other peer universities. Bob Mindrum, director of Purdue University's student union, was the team leader.

"Essentially, these are external reviews," Mindrum said. "It's pretty commonplace. There is any number of reasons why people do an external review. In general, they just see the merit in having experienced outside professionals come in and give them a different perspective on their organization. That's what we were hired to do."

Spencer identified four areas of focus for the consultants: facilities, staffing, programs and services.

During their visit, the consultants met with students and faculty deemed stakeholders in UUSA operations, particularly those with offices and activities in Squires.

"While I wouldn't characterize it as a bunch of people with glowing praise for UUSA and the facilities," Mindrum said, "I think that the very fact that many students chose to come shows a lot of ownership and shows that Squires, for example, is very important to them, and that's a good sign.

One group of stakeholders is UUSA employees. Ashley Brooks, one of the Squires building managers and a senior industrial design major, has worked for UUSA for three-and-a-half years.

She said she had enjoyed working for UUSA, originally as an operations assistant and then operations lead, before being promoted to business manager.

"I liked the idea of working in a student center that was actually run mostly by students," Brooks said. "There were a lot of student employees, and they were really involved."

Brooks said UUSA initially offered advantages that other campus jobs could not provide.

"And for the longest time when I was here, everything was great," Brooks said. "I met a lot of cool people, and they had a lot of great programs to help out their student employees, like leadership development programs. It was a really great opportunity to work on campus while still getting something back from your job besides money."

However, the past year has brought changes at UUSA in the form of budget constraints and personnel changes.

"Everybody had the best intentions with the changes, but because of the budget cuts, combined with how they wanted to make the changes, it hasn't really panned out," Brooks said.

Walters-Steele said many positions had to be cut, and others have been left vacant, including the director of student activities position.

"There have been realignments of duties. Our hope is that we won't have to let go any of our staff employees," Walters-Steele said. "We actually have some of our full-time staff filling in places where we used to have student wage workers."

She said UUSA is not filling any currently vacant positions. Spencer said the university is waiting on the results of the consultants' study before hiring a director of student activities. Others will be eliminated.

"In this economy and with the budget reductions we are facing, there's no way we could go and fill all the positions, so some will remain unfilled," Spencer said.

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