Every week the editorial board reflects on a current issue in Our View. The position taken does not reflect the opinions of everyone on the Hilltop Views staff.

Travel up the street to the University of Texas at Austin or down south to Texas State University, and you will find students who are on a break from classes spending time at their university’s student union building studying, eating or hanging out with friends.

Student union buildings are more than just a fun place to eat and hangout with friends, it gives students a place to relax in a comfortable environment. Think of the student union as the living room of the campus. It serves multiple purposes but it is all centered around a community space where students can gather and relax.

St. Edward’s desperately needs a student union building.

Here at St. Edward’s, students are dispersed throughout the campus. You can see them outside on the Rags lawn, at Hunt Hall grabbing something to eat or at the library studying. Some people may call the Ragsdale Center a student union-like building, but it’s not. Ragsdale is not the place where students can just relax. It’s more of a come and go building; that type of attitude is not how you build community.

St. Edward’s really does have a lack of community. Students within a major hardly interact with people in another one and when they do, it’s rarely outside of an academic setting.

Commuter students are in a same situation. They don’t have a place to claim as their own on campus, which can make it inconvenient to spend long hours at school. Regardless of how much the school markets itself as a “community” to perspective students, St. Edward’s does not actually have a sense of community.

It’s not easy for students to feel that sense of community when there’s not a place for large numbers of students to interact outside of the line at the cafeteria. Having a student union building would create the opportunity for St. Edward’s students to have the community they deserve. 

A student union would be the center of life on campus. It would let students, who live on and off campus, have a place to hang out in between classes.

It would benefit students who live off campus who cannot just go to their dorm room or campus apartment between classes. If St. Edward’s were to receive the funds needed for a student union, it should have a nap room like Texas State University— for more about this read Brooke Blanton’s article below— or even nap pods. Sometimes we just need to nap and don’t have the time to go back to our apartment to do so.

Commuter students have to come to campus completely prepared to spend the whole day here, most likely without the chance to go back to their apartments or even their vehicles. This means they are lugging around laptops, books, binders, food, all of the essentials to survive the day. It gets tiresome to drag all that stuff around all day, everyday.

The student union building could offer a solution to that problem: lockers. Providing students, especially commuters, a place to safely store their belongings would be wonderful. The university could even rent them out to students as a way of generating revenue.

Another aspect of a St. Edward’s student union that is an absolute must is food. While we appreciate Bon Appétit, a St. Edward’s student union should be a Bon Appétit free zone. In place of Bon Appétit, there should be a variety of mini-restaurants such as Chick-Fil-A or a barbecue stand like the unions at UT. Also, there should be a real Starbucks in our student union.

These restaurants are not the focus of a student union, though. It’s about community. A student union would be able to foster a greater sense of community among students.

It would be the launching pad for students to build new relationships among each other. Basically, a student union would be the living room for the entire university, making St. Edward’s truly feel like home.