BY CORIE LYNN
Wednesday through Friday of this week, Fort Hays State University staff, students and faculty filtered in and out of the campus building tol be known as the Fischli-Wills Center for Student success.
Upon reaching the third floor, they were greeted by members of the FHSU VIP Ambassadors, who distributed gold Sharpies for each visitor to sign their name to one of the building’s bare beams.
As one VIP Ambassador, Jennifer Gonzalez, explained, the event is one way that the University is striving to keep students involved on campus.
“[I]t’s going to be open,” Gonzalez said. “It’s going to be new. I think it’s also exciting that with COVID, there’s not a lot going on and it’s hard to get involved, so I think we just kind of wanted to get more people involved in something historic and monumental.”
The Center, which will house academic, career and health services among other campus entities, is still under construction. The beam now covered in dozens of names will soon be covered in drywall.
And, as Gonzalez said, the current campus community will have been involved in a new part of campus history.
“I think it’s important [to get students involved in something historic] because it’s cool to look back on. I mean, I’m a first generation student, and I could be like, ‘I signed my name there,’” she said.
FHSU students Avery Welton and Lilith Samples share Gonzalez’s sentiment. Both enjoy the thought of being part of a building that was built during their time as students.
Samples particularly likes the idea of being able to say she was at FHSU while the Center for Student Success was being built.
However, Welton and Samples believe that the beam signing does more than allow students to leave their mark on campus. It draws everyone into the FHSU community.
“We do go to this university and are a part of it, so I think it’s important to kind of have that bonding experience between the students and to just actually be a part when things like this happen,” Welton said.
To Samples, the Center for Students Success is a reminder that students also bond with campus buildings.
“We all have our favorite buildings to go into,” she said, “so to be a part of the new one that we probably won’t see. It won’t be there since the beginning for us, but for new students coming in, you know, they can have that history of ‘Oh, these students before us had a bond with the building.’”
Though faculty and students form these bonds by signing their name to the building, Gonzalez pointed out that the event allows participants to reconnect in person, reinforcing the community ties on campus.
“Even now I’ve seen friends and people, teachers and people from different departments,” she said. “I think it’s cool to see the community coming because this is a signing for the campus community, you know, so we want people to come and be a part of this.”