Ribbon cut at new student resource center in Union

Leaders from various student organizations celebrated the opening of a new resource center during a ribbon-cutting ceremony last night in the Student Union Building.

Located in the former Campus Activities and Programming office, room 3509, the resource room was created to provide every University of Toledo student organization with the supplies they would need for recruitment and for advertising their events free of charge.

The room is stocked with poster paper, sidewalk chalk, paint, computers and other resources a student organization may need to publicize its events.

Creating the room was one of Student Government President Matt Rubin and Vice President Jordan Maddocks' major platform issues.

The resource room was created in collaboration with CAP, SG, the Dean of Students' office, Student Union, and the Office of Student Involvement.

According to Rubin, after money is spent on national conferences and other large-scale events, little money is left for student organizations to spend on publicizing, causing organization leaders to use their own money to fund events.

Rubin said this room will allow student organizations to consolidate their resources, ultimately saving them money.

The resource room will also function as a home base for student organizations to collaborate with one another, hold meetings, and offer each other advice.

This is all intended to make student organizations at UT more successful, according to Rubin.

"It's going to unify student organizations because it's going to be a centralized location where they are going to be able to meet with other organization leaders, collaborate, and share [their] best practices," he said.

Developing this room is a tangible way to show students how SG is making progress this year, Rubin said.

Maddocks said UT has needed this room desperately for years and is now one of few universities in the country that has this type of room for organizations.

Interim Dean of Students Michele Martinez called the unveiling of the room a momentous occasion.

"Students and student organizations have been asking for this room for quite a while, and I'm glad that, in collaboration with Student Government, we were able to make this happen," she said.

Martinez said she is excited for the potential in the resource room and hopes this will allow student organizations to do more with their budget dollars.

Rubin came up with the idea for the resource room from his own experiences in student organizations and the difficulty he had with finding funds for publicity.

He brought up his idea during a Dean of Students' summer retreat in 2009.

Since then, Maddocks said the room was an abstract idea which was finally put into place this year.

The resource room also includes a large dry erase board calendar on which organizations can mark their upcoming events.

According to Martinez, this is to prevent clubs from planning events on the same day as one another.

Student leaders are excited about the resources provided for them in this room.

President of the Criminal Justice Society, Renee Miller, a senior majoring in criminal justice, said the resource room will provide organizations with an edge in recruiting new members.

"I was really excited because [the Criminal Justice Society] had been debating about whether or not to make a new banner," she said. "It will be cool to get our name out there, and I'm really excited to make the posters."

The UT Hockey Team Public Relations intern Christine Kanis, a junior majoring in communication, believes the resource room will be very beneficial to the team.

"The guys on the hockey team pay $1,500 each to play, so paying $10 or so on poster is a lot," she said. "But now we have a room where we can do it [for free]."

Rubin said the room is only in its early stages and hopes the supplies will grow to include equipment that can be rented out to clubs such as speakers, camcorders and projectors.

The resource room will be run by members of SG, work study students, and the Office of Student Involvement.

The room will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.