The seventh annual Town Hall Meeting, hosted by President George Hanbury, was held on Oct. 27 in the Arena Club Room of the Don Taft University Center.
The meeting allowed Hanbury and other NSU administrators to address students’ concerns in a two-hour question and answer session. The room was filled to capacity with undergraduate and graduate students, administrators, faculty and deans of various colleges and programs.
Hanbury began the meeting by outlining the upcoming projects: the hospital, emergency room, hotel conference center, an improved Shark Shuttle route and expansion of the gym in the University School, which will benefit visiting swim teams.
Hanbury showed the attendees a map of NSU’s upcoming master building plan, which includes the Academical Village. Hanbury also hopes to have a hotel and conference center and residential and retail space as part of the Academical Village.
“The Academical Village will show how theory and practice come together that without theory the practice is stale but without the practice the theory is no more than an academic exercise,” Hanbury said.
For now, Hanbury is hoping that the Agency for Healthcare Administration will recommend the approval to move Plantation General Hospital to NSU’s campus. However, he expects surrounding hospitals to oppose the competition. That could delay construction another year, and construction will take about two and a half years.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a hospital open on this property in the next three and a half to four years,” Hanbury said.
Hanbury then opened the floor to students who had questions. Comments ranged from concerns about the quality of water on campus, printing stations in the Carl DeSantis Building to federal work study cuts and tuition. In response to these questions, Hanbury said NSU will look into several issues brought up including the possibilities of filtering water in the residence halls and water fountains and exploring the expansion of security cameras on campus.
Sophomore biology major Timothy Bediako asked if the hours for the Food Bar and Chick-N-Grill can be extended as they are usually closed when he gets out of late classes. Hanbury relayed the question to Marc Crocquet, vice president of Business Services, who said NSU will look into extending the hours.
“The answer is we’ll make it happen,” Crocquet said. “We have locations that close at 8 and 10. We’ll try 10 o’clock for these other locations you mentioned and hopefully that will work out great.”
Undergraduate Student Government Association President Kelly Scott, senior athletic training major, asked Hanbury when a commuter student lounge would be available. Hanbury answered that there will be one in the future but the issue was trying to find out where to put it.
Ashley Dabalsa, sophomore biology major, expressed her disappointment of the university and school spirit. Her question to Hanbury was, “Where is all of our money going? Why is there lack of motivation in the professors? Why don’t I feel a sense of welcoming and comfort when I come to school?”
Hanbury answered that NSU tries to keep tuition relatively low for undergraduates and that Barry University is more expensive. Hanbury said he will arrange for her to meet with a financial aid counselor.
“I understand your concern, but the one thing I can tell you is that you are getting a valuable education. You’ve invested in yourself and there is nothing more important than that,” Hanbury said. “You will never find a better investment in yourself, especially when it comes to your education. Your education is something that no one can ever take away from you.”
After the meeting, Dabalsa said she felt her question was still not answered.
“In order to get some clarity, I now have to go and sit down with someone one-on-one to get my question answered – if it’ll even be answered. I still don’t understand why we are investing so much money when we aren’t seeing any improvement in the school. It’s not just about the money either, it’s about the student population as well – I truly believe barely anyone gets along,” she said.
Still, Dabalsa said she was glad she attended the meeting.
“I’m glad I attended the meeting because I was able to see that that there are a bunch of other students who have the same concern as I do. It’s calming to know that other students have the same worries and issues that I have,” she said.
Other students were satisfied with Hanbury’s answers.
Daesha Roberts, sophomore business administration major, asked Hanbury if the rowing team could have another van to make it easier for the team to go to meets. Hanbury answered that they will look into the issue and see what they can do. Roberts said she felt he did a good job answering her.
“I think he did a good job answering I’m sure if there was an Athletics representative here, they probably could have given me more detail since President Hanbury is over everything on campus, but I’m happy that he took it into considering and said he’s going to talk to some people about it.”
Roberts said she thinks the meeting went well.
“I think he did a very good job respecting different people’s opinions on things on campus and trying to help us all feel a little bit better about some of the problems that we’ve been having,” Roberts said.
Dominic Gonzalez, sophomore biology major, asked if the expansion of campus would make tuition go up as he knows students who left NSU for another school because of the high tuition rates. Hanbury said that NSU is trying to keep tuition as low as possible but that because NSU is nonprofit support has to come from tuition until the endowment, currently at $85 million, can grow.
“President Hanbury was definitely understanding of it,” Gonzalez said. “He’s definitely aware that people aren’t coming back and the retention rate is low because the tuition is so high. He wants to build more residence halls to build a bigger undergraduate population. I forgot to mention that I don’t think that’s going to happen because if tuition keeps going up, more people aren’t going to be coming in.”
Gonzalez said he thought the Town Hall Meeting was informative.
“I heard questions that were really great that I didn’t think of; that was awesome,” Gonzalez said. “I hope Town Hall Meetings happen more often. This is my first one.”
To read more questions and answers from the meeting, visit nova.edu/townhall/archives/2015-s.html. To learn more about future Town Hall Meetings, visit nova.edu/townhall.
