As students, we have all seen Oakland University grow immensely. This has been the first year that enrollment has hit 20,000, and campus life is flourishing because of it.  

Due to the increase of students and the new adjustments in parking, people are choosing to spend more time on campus and utilizing all of the facilities that we have here.

If you walk through the library, the recreation center, or the Oakland Center on any given day, you will see mass amounts of students.  These areas are becoming extremely crowded, and it’s not easy for anyone to find extra space to eat or relax in between or before classes. 

The Oakland Center is one of the main places on campus that students come to spend their time getting involved and hanging out with friends. It’s the building that most students frequent, and the building many people can agree really needs to be expanded. 

If you want to go get lunch in the food court around 12 pm on any given day, the lines are incredibly long, the seats are all taken, and by the time you try and figure out what your best option is, it is time for you to go back to class.  The Oakland Center serves as a central point of campus, a place of great activity and a fun place to promote and emphasize the amazing student life we have.  As we grow as a student body, the university must grow with us.

During these past few weeks a group of student leaders have come together to create a survey to assess the student body’s needs and wants toward an expanded Oakland Center.  

The committee working on the survey consists of Board of Trustees Liaisons, Robbie Williford and Samantha Wolf, Student Body President and Vice President Brandon Hanna and Jibran Ahmed, OUSC Marketing Director Tim Brown, and myself, the OUSC Student Dervices Director.

 The survey contains questions regarding how often students utilize the Oakland Center, what they use it for, what new amenities they may want in a new building, and if they would be willing to make funds available for this project.

Student participation in this survey is imperative.  We cannot accomplish an expansion of the Oakland Center without the help of the entire student body. We need your input in order to make this a success.  As student leaders on campus we are here to make sure your voices are heard and that we are serving the students properly.  

Our goal is to have the majority of the students complete this survey so we can prove to the university how important an expanded Oakland Center is.  We cannot do it without all of you, and we hope we can reach our goals.