Following a bill passed Thursday by ASMSU’s Student Assembly Policy Committee, representatives from the organization met with university officials Monday to discuss the future of Olin Health Center, which may be moved because of university budget cuts.
ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.
The bill was passed unanimously by the committee and will go to the full Student Assembly this coming Thursday for voting. The bill calls on ASMSU officials to open talks with MSU administrators to reach a decision that would involve not moving the center to its potential new home, the MSU Clinical Center.
Kyle Dysarz, chairperson of ASMSU’s Student Assembly, said although the meeting with Randy Hillard, associate provost for human health affairs, addressed concerns regarding aspects such
as student accessibility and Olin possibly losing accreditation of its services, there still are questions to be answered.
Specifically, he said, ASMSU is interested in knowing the financial particulars of the move, such as how much money would be saved by moving Olin’s services in part or in whole.
“I didn’t learn anything new coming out of (the meeting),” Dysarz said. “I didn’t get any specifics about how much the move is going to (cost).”
Hillard, who said he is in charge of making recommendations regarding Olin’s fate to MSU administrators by Oct. 16, said when it comes to figuring out what to do with the center, it’s a matter of “pluses and minuses.”
“If we stay where we are and try to make as much of an expense reduction as possible, what are the pluses and minuses of moving over to the Clinical Center,” Hillard said.
He said he felt meeting with student government groups to discuss the matter was beneficial to the decision-making process.
“Everybody asked a lot of questions,” he said. “I thought it was really useful.”
Hillard said he likely will end up making multiple
recommendations to the administration regarding Olin.
“What I’m probably going to do is come up with … several different ways we could potentially do this, describe the pluses and minuses of each one, financial and nonfinancial,” he said.
Other organizations and groups that participated in the meeting included the Student Health Advisory Committee and the Residence Halls Association, or RHA.
RHA president Emma Perot said she was optimistic about the meeting’s outcome and that it showed that
university officials charged with making decisions regarding Olin value student input.
“I feel very good about it,” Perot said. “It was a great opportunity for RHA to voice our concerns about the potential move of Olin.”
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