The outdoor space between Gallahue Hall and the Holcomb Building will be a new study area for students by the beginning of next school year.

Student Government Association approved the project last Wednesday. The executive board has been working on it since last semester.

The new area will have tables with umbrellas and bar-height tables for studying, as well as lounge chairs and couches for recreational use, said Scott Nemeth, vice president of administration. Power outlets and Wi-Fi routers will also be installed to make studying in the area more convenient.

“It’s going to be left behind for students to use for years to come, and I don’t think there’s anything better than that,” Nemeth said.

During coffee chats and surveys, students expressed a desire to be outside more. With the Starbucks patio having a limited amount of space, the board decided on this patio project to add more outdoor soft space, Nemeth said.

The project as a whole will cost $100,000 to complete, said Derek Friederich, SGA vice president of finance.

After looking at what it could get for a variety of different price points, the board decided on the recently-passed budget, mainly because of the quality of the Wi-Fi and power sources.

The money will come from the rollover account, which stores leftover money from the SGA budget.

“Year after year, this amount accrues to an unnecessary large amount,” Friederich said. “There’s no reason to have several-hundred-thousand dollars just sitting in the account.”

In the past, money from this account has been used by other executive boards for other projects, including the Brita water filters and the bike share program.

“We aren’t doing this because SGA executives wanted to see this happen,” SGA President Mike Keller said. “It’s something students have been asking for.”

The project was relatively easy as the space was already available and easy to work with, Keller said. Students can expect to see progress on the area by commencement in May.

Future executive boards will probably look to add lighting to the area, Keller said. After students use the space for a few years, it will be easier to see what other things are in demand.

People have also talked about adding some sort of coffee kiosk or cart in the future so students working in the area wouldn’t have to walk all the way to Starbucks, Keller said.

The patio will hopefully offset the demand for more outdoor study space on the Starbucks patio, he said, which has proven difficult to work with due to space issues and negotiations with Aramark.

The proposed parking garage at Butler University will likely add a significant amount of housing—in addition to parking spaces—if it is approved by the Board of Trustees.

Vice President for Student Affairs Levester Johnson presented preliminary sketches of possible new rooms at a Student Government Association meeting last week.

“We wanted to get (students’) feedback on that design and offer any feedback on that, the location and amenities,” Johnson said.

One sketch displayed a four-person room containing two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room area and a kitchenette.

Johnson called the sketch a blend between a Residential College room and an Apartment Village room.

This type of housing would target sophomores, as the university is going to be lacking living space for second-year students on campus next year “to the extent of about 280 to 300 beds,” Johnson said.

Scott Nemeth, SGA vice president of administration, said students present at the SGA meeting responded positively to the plan Johnson presented.

“I would say that students were, overall, enthusiastic about it,” Nemeth said. “I thought LJ provided a lot of insight to a project in its infancy, which is cool to do.”

SGA President Mike Keller said students brought up a few concerns, namely regarding cost and the furnishing of living rooms.

Keller said a narrow majority expressed their desire that the living rooms not be furnished, primarily because of the cost to live on campus now.

“The housing across campus is just really expensive,” Keller said. “Some people feel like they have to commute or live off campus to escape it.”

Another reason for this request was the idea that, as sophomores, students are getting to a point where they might like to have their own furniture instead of taking care of university property, Keller said.

Other questions posed by students involved being able to open windows in the rooms and the potential views rooms would have.

The proposed project has undergone a healthy amount of change since it was first revealed last spring.

While the original plan was to construct a parking garage that would house as many as 1,000 vehicles, that same building could now host multiple facets of university life.

“I think that (the project) has just developed into this multi-purpose facility that kind of meets the needs of parking, housing and retail space, which are all things students have been asking administration to do for a while,” Nemeth said.

Keller said the proposed complex’s

construction would likely be completed by fall 2014 if approved.

However, the Board of Trustees still has to approve the plan, and Ben Hunter, chief of staff, said it is not up for action at this moment.

One way or another, Butler’s master plan calls for the university to add more housing sometime in the near future, Johnson said.

Additionally, Butler officials would like to do extensive renovations in Ross Hall and Schwitzer Hall around the same time.

Johnson said Butler administrators would continue to gauge student opinion as new information surrounding the project becomes available.

Keller, Nemeth and other members of the SGA board have consistently been invited to participate in meetings with Butler officials and building architects.

“Once things get a little bit closer to where we’re determining what we want to be (in) the retail on the bottom or what the rooms have in them, (Butler officials) have made their intentions known that they’re going to be looking to us as students to be able to fill them in on what students want,” Keller said.

Part of Nemeth’s SGA job is to encourage Butler administrators to attend assembly meetings.

Nemeth arranged for Johnson to attend last week’s meeting for the Council on Presidential Affairs topic of the week and said he believes Johnson will be at future meetings too.

“As we get closer to the project, they’ll probably hold more public forums,” Nemeth said. “I think they’re extremely important because not only do they inform students of what’s going on, but it really allows them to provide insight.

“That’s crucial because I think the administration can sometimes not understand exactly what our wants and needs are.”

Johnson agreed that public forums are crucial at Butler, noting that the original design for Apartment Village was altered in some ways thanks to feedback from students.

“It’s imperative that we go ahead and have these types of gatherings and go even beyond the formal lines we have through SGA and students sitting in on various committees of the Board of Trustees,” Johnson said.

Keller said that although many of Butler’s current students will not get the opportunity to live in the planned housing, they should look forward to the potential project.

“I hope that students see this as an opportunity,” Keller said. “They should really be excited about this project because it’s going to be really correcting a lot of the issues students have with the campus.”

The Student Government Association’s office in Atherton Union has a new look.

The door was open, and boxes were scattered everywhere as SGA President Mike Keller stood atop a step stool, remodeling the room.

“I have no complaints about last year’s SGA group,” Keller said, “but this year we’re going to focus on some new goals.”

Keller said SGA wants to make changes that are more than cosmetic.

“We’re working with Butler IT right now to make a nicer, easier-to-use website,” Keller said.

Keller said the website will be online in September, and students can volunteer to receive a weekly newsletter via email.

Keller said his biggest goal was being physically accessible.

“I really want students to feel like they can just stop by the SGA office any time,” Keller said. “Our door will always be open.”

After two summer retreats and multiple mini assemblies, SGA has come up with a list of over 100 goals for the 2012-13 school year.

“We definitely want to continue on the great foundation that was left for us,” said Scott Nemeth, vice president of administration. “We’re going to inherit some really cool grants and projects this year.”

Those projects include new Brita water stations as part of the Council on Presidential Affairs Green Operations sector and a new bike rental system that will give students the opportunity to check out bikes.

“We want to make more big projects out of student ideas,” Nemeth said.

SGA has already begun scheduling coffee chats in Starbucks, where students will get a chance to talk to SGA and Butler officials about changes and ideas they would like to see implemented.

SGA also wants to distribute more surveys to students to help prioritize the projects for the year.

One of SGA’s largest annual projects is the Butlerpalooza concert.

Butlerpalooza is scheduled for Sep. 7, and while the artist may soon be revealed program board chair Stevan Tomich said he is sworn to secrecy.

“I really can’t tell anything, but this year there will be an after party in the Reilly Room after the concert,” Tomich said.

Time will tell if SGA is ready for its latest challenges, but Keller said he has tremendous faith in the group.

“I’m just constantly amazed by this new group’s enthusiasm,” Keller said.

“If we keep it up, I really think that we’ll be able to make some positive changes to the campus this year.”

On April 22, 1970, millions of Americans, led by students, protested pollution in America.

More than four decades later, Earth Day celebrations are still held at hundreds of campuses and communities across the country.

The Student Government Association is planning an Earth Day celebration this Friday for Butler University students to get involved and raise awareness about environmental issues.

Scott Nemeth, a sophomore political science and international studies major, said SGA got involved in Earth Day this year as an offshoot of its ongoing Green Movement.

The Earth Day celebration will be featuring Tim Carter, the director of the Center for Urban Ecology, followed by a showing of the movie “Wall-E” in PB 150 at 9 p.m. Friday.

SGA has also teamed up with Aramark to offer organic food for Friday’s lunch to promote sustainable eating practices.

Nemeth said the goal is to make students aware of the small actions they can take to help the environment.

“It’s a good day to be aware of the environment and know we have to do something,” Nemeth said. “We all sit here and we see the news and realize, ‘The earth is in bad shape,’ but then we get in our SUVs and waste gas.”

While the Environmental Concerns Organization and SGA joined together this semester for the Green Movement with a video and poster campaign, they have focused on different events for Earth Day. Nemeth said both organizations can still make an impact toward raising student awareness.

“We’re doing our own things,” he said. “But we’re still partners for the same cause.”