Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Groups look to open kiosk again

Students would be available to answer questions regarding University

Four organizations are teaming up to get the KU Info booth in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall open for the first time in 30 years.

By Brenna Hawley (Contact)

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Four campus organizations are coming together to revamp the kiosk in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall.

The structure was a gift from the class of 1950 and was originally intended as an informational booth. It hasn’t been used for anything except hanging flyers for 30 years, and now Student Senate, The University Daily Kansan, KU Info and the Provost’s office are all working to revitalize the booth. The project will cost around $30,000.

Curtis Marsh, program director for KU Info, said that at one time, students staffed the booth and it had runners who went back and forth to Watson Library to gather information. Marsh wants the kiosk to be a satellite office of KU Info, which is in the Kansas Union. The kiosk would also work with The Kansan.

Marsh said the kiosk was in a great location for students but had fallen into disrepair.

“If we make it look nicer, people will respect it more,” Marsh said. “People won’t want to just slap stickers on it.”

Malcolm Gibson, general adviser to The Kansan, said he wanted to overhaul the kiosk since he came to the University in 1996.

Gibson said The Kansan Board discussed contributing one-third of the costs of the kiosk, but had not yet voted.

Gibson said the renovated building would have a new roof, heating, Internet access and phone access. He said the building might also have air conditioning and an LCD screen on the outside of the building to display student group advertisements and campus notices.

Gibson said he wanted a member of The Kansan to staff the kiosk during school days and special events.

Andy Haverkamp, Hoyt freshman and freshman senator, wrote a bill to get funding from Senate for the kiosk. He said when he first came to the University, he asked upperclassmen what the building was, and many didn’t know.

Haverkamp said he contacted people involved and had the bill written in two days.

At last night’s Senate meeting, Senate passed legislation to provide $16,000 from the Student Senate Reserve Account to the project.

Don Steeples, vice provost for scholarly support, said the building hasn’t been renovated because there hasn’t been funding for a project. He said the office of the provost would provide close to a third of the cost of the renovation.

Steeples said the project would go to Design and Construction Management for the design phase of the process. The project would then move to either Facilities and Operations or an outside contractor if the department was too busy to build it. Steeples said if there were enough money to move forward on the project, it probably wouldn’t be completed until summer 2009.

— Edited by Jared Duncan

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