Its steps are worn from the footsteps of thousands of ISU students.

Its chairs are frayed from the thousands of students who have studied in them.

It is the Memorial Union, the center of student activity at Iowa State.

Walk through the Memorial Union and student life is visible around every corner and in every room.

Late nights studying in the commons, eating at the Food Court, sleeping in the Browsing Library.

The M-Shop with its wide variety of entertainment, the office spaces for almost any student club or organization, the Rec Center with its black light bowling lanes.

No other building on the ISU campus holds so many memories for so many students. From the dances in the Great Hall to the speakers in the Sun Room to the Christian Petersen Fountain of the Four Seasons just outside its main doors – history resonates from every wall.

And it’s all ours.

Unlike every other building on Central Campus, the union is owned by the students. No one, not university administration, not the state Board of Regents, not Gov. Tom Vilsack, can do anything to it unless the students of Iowa State agree.

It is a building centered around us, and it is our responsibility.

On April 3, the Government of the Student Body voted 32-0, with one abstention, in support of a new renovation of the union. The project will cost $11.5 million and students will pay an extra $15 each semester in their student fees to help back it.

What a great deal.

For only $30 a year, ISU students will be ensuring that one of the most important landmarks on the ISU campus will continue to be as viable and student-friendly as ever. Their money will ensure that every ISU student is able to enjoy the union with new handicap-accessible features, something long overdue at the building.

It will ensure that the union continues to be a place for dialogue and learning with the creation of a multicultural center.

It will ensure that leaky roofs do not create more water damage to the union’s beautiful study lounges and meeting rooms.

These projects were pushed aside for a long time, and the danger of students losing control of the union because of them was very real.

But as tuition rates go through the roof, programs are cut across departments and class sizes grow beyond auditorium seating, this is one area of the ISU campus where students make the decisions and determine the quality.

Give the administration Beardshear Hall. Let the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences fill up Catt Hall and the College of Agriculture climb the stairs of Curtiss.

We have the Memorial Union, and it’s all ours.

editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Charlie Weaver, Omar Tesdell