Theatre students left to pay for their renos?

Amidst all the bustle and excitement of yesterday’s UWSA board meeting (and you might think I’m being sarcastic but I really love this stuff!), one issue particularly caught my eye.

A representative for the Theatre Students’ Association was present with a request for the board. The TSA wants board approval for a question to be placed on 2008 by-election ballots. The question would ask students if they support holding a referendum during the 2009 UWSA elections. The referendum question would ask if students support a $10 levy applied to all students’ fees for one year.

Yeah- so they came to get approval to possibly get students’ approval for a referendum that might get students’ approval for a levy. That just makes my day! Sometimes bureaucracy is hilarious.

But the important question- what is this levy about? Well, funds would go to finishing the massive renovations on the Theatre building. Apparently, there were some problems with the construction budget on the newly named Canwest Centre for Theatre and Film.  According to the TSA rep, as costs grew, the budget didn’t, and now they are stuck with an in-progress stage area, as well as unfinished floors.

I took a walk in there today, for the first time since construction started and I must say it is looking pretty great, for an unfinished building. And anyone who has taken classes in its former rundown, smelly, cracked-wall incarnation (myself included) will truly appreciate the change. Still, no, it is not finished. Having a theatre in a theatre building is fairly essential. Flooring’s always a plus as well.

The question is, why are theatre students in charge of coming up with the needed cash to finish the job? And why should the general student body take a share in this responsibility? These are questions that the UWSA board rightly brought up, and in absence of more details and the promised budgeted plan for the levy money, the board denied this motion for the time being. I certainly don’t blame them.

But does this leave Theatre students in the lurch? What is going on here? Who dropped the ball on this funding issue, if anyone?

I’m on it!