To the Editor:

The Chapel and Browsing Library issue of the Iowa State Memorial Union is not limited to the relative minority which consistently uses these facilities, but to the mass of minorities who left to fight alone shall consistently fail but who aligned as a whole, may preserve the few remaining obscure curiosities which yield a sense of character and spirit to a world otherwise headed for a creative and spiritual apocalypse.

There is stake within this decision for all, although many would be content to allow the masses to believe the affected numbers are an expendable few. Both the issue and its hidden importance to the majority, not the minority, must be understood and only then might one understand how inaction with regard to the issue as well as the lot of similar ones can lead to an end more undesirable than is now fully understood.

The Chapel and Browsing Library were included in the Memorial Union for two main purposes. The first utilitarian, providing a space for quiet spiritual contemplation and solitude regarding the Chapel, and the allowance for an area for casual reading, intellectual exploration and relaxation in the form of the Browsing Library.

The second purpose was to the same end as that of the Memorial Union itself: To pay tribute to the minds and souls of ISU soldiers who risked and lost their lives to preserve and protect the United States of America. This tribute went further by spatially connecting the Chapel and Browsing Library to the Gold Star Hall.

The architect, W.T. Proudfoot, placed the Chapel and Browsing Library as he did so that they would serve as both the literal and symbolic ‘foundation’ of the Memorial Union. Literally, by laying the Gold Star Hall directly atop these rooms, and (symbolically), by embodying the deepest, truest reasons an individual might kill for a country, reasons of the mind and spirit.

This represents the basis for those who are presently fighting for the preservation of these two rooms. There are groups who utilize these places and they also represent a good proportion of those opposed to the moving or elimination of the Browsing Library and Chapel.

But this call is not only to that passionate minority which shall alone fail, but to a majority which need not use or vehemently love either of these places, but need only understand the beauty of their symbolism, and find it valuable.

Presently there exists a faction of the student body which desires the removal of the Chapel and the Browsing Library from its present location not for more student office spaces, for this purpose could be facilitated via other means, but for the consolidation of student office space used by student groups.

In effect the claim is that the Chapel and Browsing Library, and their role in the timeless lesson conveyed symbolically; a statement of not words but of spatial relation; an increasingly absent example of the human ability to do more than provide use and function in creation but to also communicate ideas and visions; a statement not of language but of wood, granite and glass; that all this is not to the same level of worth is as the utilitarian function of eliminating the need of student office groups to go up a flight of stairs.

The words used to describe the question are biased, however, the description of the question itself is not. Student office space consolidation and the benefits from such viewed against the architectural device of the Gold Star Hall, Chapel and the Browsing Library and its respective worth; this is the query. This is where the decision lies, and this is where input is needed.

I have attempted to explain the question as well as explain my position on it. The GSB Executives Dan Mangan and Jen Sulentic, both who may be reached in the GSBoffice in the Memorial Union, are logical individuals who hold a different opinion of this issue, and who most certainly would be able to communicate the other side of this issue with more vigor than I.

It would be advantageous to hear their position in deciding upon one’s own stance regarding this issue.

Let me add that my e-mail address is [email protected], and that any input students can give me as both a GSB Senator and Student Union Board member will be of great assistance. There are many claims that the students on this campus are apathetic.

Perhaps this is true, but maybe there is another reason that the students on this campus seem to be uninvolved in voting for their GSB reps., attending SUB or GSB meetings, communicating with their senators, etc.

Perhaps rather than being innately uninterested in what goes on at their university, no one has truly asked them for their opinions, and explained how important their input is.

I am asking, agree or disagree.

I have my view, but as a representative of the student body it is my duty to follow the wishes of the students. This is very difficult without student input, and furthermore allows personal opinions of a senate elected with only three percent of the students voting decide policy for all of them.

Only the students have the ability to change this, by providing their input, and senators will be more likely to vote in line with the wishes of the students, not their own.

These words, both those of the Browsing Library and Chapel issue and those of the effect, you the student, can have on them are exceedingly important.

I open my door to you, and implore you, the ISUstudent body to come in.

Matthew Goodman

Senior

Chemistry