To the editor:

Hello, my name is Samuel Lund, and I am a very involved student at Southwest Minnesota State University. I dedicate my time, especially in our student government, to my campus because I love the positive atmosphere and welcoming community it provides. I have been at SMSU for almost 2 and ½ years and have noticed that my school doesn’t have a wide variety of outdoor amenities or facilities for students to use. Which, in my opinion, harms our university’s image. I believe that as a community, we must bring attention to our university to help it grow! Growing our campus by attracting new students to our university will benefit the whole town itself. This brings me to our current situation.

Our SMSU Students’ Association voted to pass a proposal to build outdoor basketball courts and lights for students to use. While our student body government has passed it, it still will have to move through more barriers until it can make it to our spring ballot where students will vote on it. The proposed project will benefit another existing facility as the new lights would allow students to also use our sand volleyball courts longer as time is currently limited by natural light.

I know I am not alone in this view as many others have voiced their approval of this project. It is with the support of our community through donations, raising awareness, and student and Marshall support that this can happen. As students, we don’t expect outside contributions; however, they would help reduce the cost students would have to pay through tuition for this proposed project. Which would help tackle a major obstacle that would prevent students from voting “Yes”. Thank you, Marshall community, for the support.

Samuel Lund

Marshall