Somer Hollingsworth

Review of UNLV Student Union and Event S...

UNLV is an open campus. This means, with few excep...

UNLV is an open campus. This means, with few exceptions, the Las Vegas community is welcome to visit the campus anytime, including having access to some of the same facilities as the students. These include the Lied Library (a Nevada ID is all that is required for a library card), the Law Library, the Student Recreation Center (UNLV's gym, which for $25 a month, the indoor pool, climbing wall, cardio machines and weights as well as the locker room and showers can be fully enjoyed by anyone in our community), and the Student Union (a place to go and enjoy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or a bite to eat from Panda Express, Taco Bell, Steak & Shake, or Sushi Burrito, or where you can simply relax and decompress from the rigors of the day).

Sadly, the Student Union's current management team doesn't understand the term community or open campus, as demonstrated by their enforcement of rules targeting the elderly and less fortunate of our Las Vegas community, who use the Student Union to relax as well, hoping to find a small respite from their normally stressful lives. Management at the Student Union has taken it upon themselves to create two sets of rules, one for UNLV students and the other for our community's most vulnerable; the old, the physically or mentally challenged, and the homeless. For example, if a student were to fall asleep in the Student Union nothing would happen, it s a common occurrence, as the Student Union was built to create a relaxing environment where one can go and forget about an upcoming test (a game room is even included to help in this process). However, if any of the aforementioned of our community fall asleep, the campus police is immediately called, and the individual is trespassed from UNLV for an entire year.

BANNED FROM UNLV FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR.

I personally overheard a campus police officer literally begging a staff member to allow him to ask the person in question to just leave for the day instead, arguing that he knew this person, and even vouching for their character, arguing that having to enforce this type of punitive punishment was heavy handed and unnecessary. Unfortunately, management insisted that the officer remove this undesirable anyway, commenting to another staff member, that's one more we got rid of". The officer had no choice but to trespass the individual for an entire year, but to his credit he made it clear...
What they were doing wasn't right.

To UNLV's credit, this elitist snobbery seems to be isolated just to the management staff of the Student Union and in no way represents, what is an otherwise very diverse, socially conscious University. It's simply a case of one bad apple...