ASUW is looking to remedy the lack of a service location, following a death last Halloween, by building a memorial for the deceased UW student.
“This year we had a memorial service, and there was really no place to have that,” Chris Ryan, the director of governmental affairs at ASUW, said. “We only have memorial benches for deans who passed away.”
Last fall, ASUW passed a piece of legislation to develop a statue for the middle of Prexy’s Pasture, however the university vetoed the project.
Ryan said that after the university veto, ASUW decided to build a student memorial.
“They decided to build a plaza or a wall, memorializing lost student lives—students who died while being students for the University of Wyoming—because right now there is only one place on campus that memorializes lost student lives,” he said. “It’s the ‘Come Run With Me’ Memorial by the field house.”
The board of trustees approved the building of the memorial in front of Half Acre Gym, he said.
“It’s been approved by the board of trustees, he said. “It is going to be out in front of where Half Acre is.”
The $234,541 memorial will be funded through an endowment not associated with student tuition or fees.
“The original amount was $234,541 and that comes from an endowment that can only be spent on things like this, so it is not student fee money—it is not tuition money,” Ryan said. “That’s an endowment that was put away and the interest is saved and then spent on things like this.”
ASUW is still working with an architect on the design of the new student memorial.
“There are three basic designs, and it’s going to be in some manner a choice between those. It is going to be kind of a low line wall with a brush around it,” Ryan said.
He said that the memorial construction should be completed by next fall.
Mohamed Zayed, a UW sophomore studying electrical engineering, said that he thinks a student memorial is a good idea.
“I like the idea that students can gather somewhere on campus and memorialize a lost student life or anything of a similar manner,” he said.
