It seems the search for a donor for the expansion of Norris University Center just got a little more complicated.

After Associated Student Government passed a resolution last week, Northwestern officials must decide whether or not to change Norris’ name to Norris Student Union.

Before the Norris Center Advisory Board, Vice President for Student Affairs William Banis and NU’s Board of Trustees — not to mention the Norris family — sign off on the change, they might want to look at the arguments being made in its favor. They will find a series of contradictions and a lack of supporting evidence.

ASG President Rachel Lopez and Public Relations Chairman Joel Richlin, the two largest proponents of the change, have said the change would help NU find a donor for Norris expansion. Also, the new name would better reflect the purpose Norris serves and bring more student unity to campus.

Lopez and Richlin apparently haven’t taken a good look around Norris lately. Take today as an example. In Norris’ cleverly named meeting rooms, you will find the Office of Student Affairs holding a health service search, the fall overnight program finishing up with another weekend’s worth of prospies and five minicourses open to the entire public.

Then venture downstairs to the ground floor around lunchtime. There you will see a large portion of staff and faculty enjoying Sbarro’s greasy goodness and Willie’s Food Court’s modestly priced delicacies. Sure, students are there there too, but not nearly so many as last year –thanks to the quasi-elimination of meal equivalence.

Norris clearly is meant to serve a broader population than just students. Even Norris Director Bill Johnston, who supports the name change in hopes of bettering chances of finding a donor, contradicted himself last month when he told The Daily that Norris expansion would benefit the whole campus “and not just the students.”

Granted, students are by far the most frequent users of Norris’ facilities. But isn’t that true of almost all buildings on campus? That’s no reason to change Tech’s name to the Technological Student Institute. If we are looking for places to call “student union,” maybe we can look to places where students actually congregate. How about Chipotle Student Union? No? What about the Keg Student Union of Evanston?

Now ASG has argued that students can’t use Norris as a student union properly until the $23-million expansion happens. I wholly agree. As leaders astutely pointed out, just 20 of ASG’s 93 recognized groups have offices at Norris. That’s shameful — but how does changing Norris’ name translate into finding a donor, expanding the building and giving students what they need?

Richlin said the resolution passed at last week’s Senate meeting would complement efforts they are making to gauge student opinion about the need for the expansion. ASG has asked many student groups to draft letters expressing such need. The group hopes to conduct an online poll in the next two weeks to collect data campuswide.

But most significantly, even Richlin said he recognizes that the name change is just another thing ASG is trying in order to find a donor. The group would be better off putting all of its effort into making Norris more like a student union.

Why don’t they have an online poll to gauge student opinion about bringing meal equivalence back so students have a reason to congregate at Norris? Why don’t they work with student groups to pack more events into Norris and prove the students really want this to be a student union?

ASG’s intentions are good, and I like the move to get involved with finding a expansion donor. But playing the name game is a little premature.

News Editor Adam Williams is a Communication junior. He can be reached at [email protected].