Ransdell suggests using chapel

President Gary Ransdell and the Student Government Association want to get the word out about the Chandler Memorial Chapel.

When Ransdell spoke to SGA last week, one of his suggestions was that they help promote student usage of the chapel.

“The chapel adds a new element to campus that hasn’t been there in the past,” Ransdell said.

Since opening last spring, there have been about a dozen weddings and a few funerals at the chapel, but not as many activities for students, said John Paul Blair, assistant vice president for Major Gifts.

“They have used it for campus ministry events, but other than that I do not think there has been a lot of student usage, which is something we definitely hope to see,” Blair said.

Blair said Ransdell came up with the idea for the chapel in 2006 because he thought the campus had a missing element. More than $2 million was raised to fund the building of the chapel.

SGA President Colton Jessie said he will definitely help make students aware of the chapel and its purpose.

“I’ve been there a couple of times and it is absolutely gorgeous,” Jessie said. “A lot of people don’t know it is actually there because there has not been a big event there.”

Jessie said he will use this idea, as well as others Ransdell gave to SGA, to help improve the campus.

“It was nice for him to come down and give us some ideas,” Jessie said. “I really appreciated how thorough he was with the students as he took his time and gave us a lot of help.”

SGA plans events for October

The Student Government Association is working on numerous projects for the month of October.

On Oct. 19, SGA will host its annual Campus Cleanup at 3:30 p.m.

“We will meet at Centennial Mall and just walk around campus together cleaning up whatever we see,” SGA President Colton Jessie said.

Also on Oct. 19, Jessie and other SGA members will be meeting with the dean’s council to give them an undergraduate perspective of graduate students teaching classes.

Jessie said he thinks it’s risky if graduate students start teaching general education classes of 100 students or more.

“They shouldn’t be thrown into teaching those classes,” Jessie said.

SGA is also helping to fund an event on Oct. 20 for the campus group Americans for an Informed Democracy, which will be having a fair trade T-shirt swap.

Students will be able to trade in their T-shirts for a fair trade shirt, which means it was not made by underage children or in sweatshops.

The deadline for some SGA scholarships is coming up. Study away, study abroad and scholar development scholarships can be found online and must be turned in by Oct. 15.

Note: The print version of this story incorrectly states Jessie’s point of view about graduate students teaching undergraduate classes. The error has been corrected online.