Ohio University has formed a committee to decide how the announced new indoor multipurpose facility will be used.
The multipurpose center is being funded from a $10 million portion of the donations from Robert and Margaret Walter, given to OU last December. A portion of the donation will also go toward renovating The Convo.
The group consists of Kent Smith, vice president for student affairs; David Carr, professor for recreation and sport pedagogy; Doug Franklin, assistant dean of recreation and wellness; Wendy Jakmas, president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce; Jesse Neader, Student Senate president; Dick Planisek, director of facility planning and space management; Stacy Strauss, soccer coach; Jim Schaus, director of Athletics; Carey Snyder, associate professor in the Honor Tutorial College; Richard Suk, professor and Marching 110 director; Beth Vanderveer, chair and associate professor for recreation and sport pedagogy and Leah Ward, president of the Black Student Cultural Programming Board.
"The Faculty Senate put forth a resolution for faculty members' names, and then other people were selected based on individuals who expressed interest in serving," said Becky Watts, chief of staff to President Roderick McDavis. "The president wanted to have a cross section of academic and curricular activities represented on the committee, so making sure that all aspects of the university that would benefit by being on this committee were represented at the table."
The committee will have its first meeting Monday, where it will discuss what activities should be included in the multipurpose center.
"They will talk about their meeting schedule and when you have that many individuals and faculty with teaching schedules and other individuals, they themselves will have to set times off," Watts said.
Watts said the committee hopes to have recommendations to McDavis by the end of spring quarter.
"What they will have is recommendations on the kinds of activities that could occur in a multipurpose facility ... then that can inform the design or the actual aspect of the design," she said.
Although Watts said that she doesn't know of any other private donations that have been made, there have been other donor calls related to proposals that support the facility.
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