ISU Bengal

Issue date: 2/2/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Jesse Sena Construction continues on the new student union building . Due to the minor budget problems, the completion date has moved from January 2007 to the summer of 2007.

Though it is visually little more than a dirt lot populated by construction trailers and hard-hat adorned busy bodies, progress on the Rendezvous is full steam ahead.

Under construction since summer 2004, the new addition to the ISU campus will represent the evolution of the university and serve numerous practical purposes for students and faculty alike. The project was initially conceived to remedy increased need for additional classrooms and office space but has since transformed into a multipurpose answer to several of the university's current dilemmas. For instance, recent costs to add classroom space to the Physical Science building was a heavy financial blow for the university. The facilities housed in the Rendezvous will alleviate future need for such additions, eventually saving up to $20 million in building costs, according to Darrell Buffaloe, physical plant director.

Aside from vast improvement in academic facilities, the more popular and noticeable change will present itself socially, transforming the seemingly polarized portion of campus into a state-of-the-art gathering place for ISU students. The Rendezvous will include the ISU Spirit Shop, a dining hall and a cyber café where students will be able to study, mingle and simply be students with computers, coffee and other innumerable benefits at hand.

"The Rendezvous will save students a lot of running around," Buffaloe said. "Instead of walking from end to end of campus, all of their classes could potentially be in one building."

The Rendezvous will be ISU's answer to the melting pot theory that is so popular in the American ideal. It will unify all departments, students, and faculty members of the university. Rumors of budget difficulties and grumbling from the community have plagued construction, but Buffaloe insists the budget conflict was overblown and the displeasure from students has stemmed largely from a misunderstanding regarding funding for the project. In such a massive undertaking as the Rendezvous, there are countless building duties being delegated, and the subsequent budget confusion was the result. Buffaloe insists that construction since then is "going pretty smoothly."

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