The few students familiar with the University's table of needs agree that its priorities - financial aid, new faculty, and advising - reflect the needs of current undergraduates, but said that students had minimal input in the table's development.
"We, in general, have as much knowledge as the rest of the student body, meaning that we don't really have a whole lot," said Cash McCracken '08, the Undergraduate Council of Students' student activities chair.
UCS President Brian Bidadi '06 said the student opinions considered by the administration as it formulated the table were based on UCS reports and polls in previous years. However, the University responded to UCS concerns that current students will not benefit from the campaign by building satellite fitness centers and increasing the number of 24-hour study spaces, Bidadi said.
Although President Ruth Simmons listened to student feedback when she presented the table to UCS in April, students at the meeting said they were given the impression that the table was more or less final. She presented the current table to UCS at a meeting Wednesday.
All UCS meetings are open to the entire Brown community, but few non-UCS students came to hear the presentation. Consequently, those who have served on UCS account for most of the undergraduates familiar with the table.
"It would have been nice if they had brought it to us in an earlier stage," said UCS member Ben Creo '07, regarding April's presentation. "The response to our queries was basically 'it's too late.' "
In April, UCS members' response to the table focused on the relatively low priority given to construction of a campus center, even as a $10 million fitness center was listed as a top objective. The center was classified among the second category of needs - those that are less urgent and will not be implemented unless a donor specifically wants to support them.
Simmons responded then, and in a second presentation of the table to UCS Wednesday night, that a campus center had been one of her personal priorities, but that in previous years UCS had told the administration a fitness center was more urgent.
As the Corporation, alumni and other members of the Brown community communicated their priorities to the University, Simmons said that even projects she perceived as imperative were pushed further down the list.
"I was mortified when I first saw the (Sharpe Refectory), and I said, 'this will be my first project,' " Simmons said. "But students (and alumni) said 'well, what's wrong with it?' "
On Wednesday, Simmons said she regretted the campus center was still not in the first category, but that the table "will continue to evolve" and the existing priorities had been determined using input from all constituencies on campus.
"Your predecessors determined that fitness was more of a priority at the time," Simmons said. Reversing that decision would be impossible now that a gift for the fitness facility has been secured and an architect has been chosen, she added.
McCracken said the need for more community spaces on campus - whether in the form of a student center or larger lecture hall - is on UCS' agenda, but can only be met with large-scale investment by the University. McCracken asked Simmons if less expensive improvements to Faunce House could serve as short-term solutions for students.
"You have to be careful about the amount you invest, so it doesn't become a deterrent (to large-scale investment)," Simmons said. An investment in excess of $5 million dollars, she said, would "push the campus center back even farther."
Additional campus life initiatives too big for UCS to institute alone include an endowed student activity fund and new student housing, neither of which are emphasized on the table.
In her third year on UCS, Vice-President Sarah Saxton-Frump '07 said she has noticed the campaign's effect on the student government's focus. "Our agendas have shifted away from long-term objectives to things we can get done this year or in the next semester so students don't feel like they're being ignored," she said.
UCS Corporation Liaison Kate Brandt '07 saw the table at both UCS and Brown University Community Council meetings, and said Simmons' request for input was refreshingly different from the message sent last spring.
"I was interested to hear that (the table) is so flexible because, as I recall, it was presented as more static," Brandt said.
Simmons said the table would be released to the community following Saturday's kickoff.
