After a semester of discussion, the fate of the Memorial Union remains undecided, and an operating agreement has yet to be reached.

Iowa State’s Memorial Union currently is operated independently of the university. The possibility that the Union will be part of the university system in the future is still being discussed by the ISU Student Union Board and university officials.

Members of the Memorial Union Board and the Government of the Student Body have met with ISU vice presidents Warren Madden and Thomas Hill to discuss several options for the future of the Union.

One option is bringing in a third party to evaluate the situation, said Ryan Sievers, president of the Memorial Union Board of Directors.

“A professional and objective third party can provide an analysis of the Union,” said Sievers, senior in anthropology, “a group to give us a report card, so to speak, to give us a good idea about where we stand.”

Sievers said he thought a compromise would be the best route for the Union.

“The Union should remain operating independently, to some degree,” he said. “Just the Union or just the university is not a good idea — we need a compromise.”

Thomas Hill, vice president for Student Affairs, said he believes the Union would benefit from becoming more a part of the university.

“Being part of the university system will provide some options,” he said. “It would make the Union have resources that wouldn’t be available it they were independent.”

Currently, the Union doesn’t have the resources to continue to be self-supporting. A $5 million balloon payment is due at the end of this year, and any further renovation may require help from GSB and Iowa State.

ISU administrators say another problem with the Union is its under-utilization. However, Sievers said university officials are basing decisions on out-of-date information.

“They’re operating on old data,” he said. “If you spend five minutes in the Union, you know it’s being used.”

Iowa State’s Memorial Union is one of the best, Sievers said.

“With the resources we have, our Union is one of the better than those it is compared with. Our Student Office Space and our Food Court are national leaders,” he said. “We are constantly trying to improve.”

Another concern is the inefficiency of student-dominated governance of the Union. Although, Sievers said student governance of the Union may be slower, it is better for the students.

“For some major decisions, the Board of Directors has to be convened, which is inherently slower than the vice president of Student Affairs making a snap decision,” he said. “But the Board of Directors is 50 percent students, so that the answer coming back has half the students’ voice.”

As a part of the university system, governance of the Union would be different, Hill said. “It would obviously change the decision-making process to be like others that are entirely within the university,” he said.

Hill said there will be more discussions on the fate of the Union in the future.

“We will continue to talk, trying to handle the issues in the best way possible,” he said.