Students, faculty members and community members gathered outside the front doors of Dixie State University’s new Campus View Suites Oct. 19 for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the school’s first housing project in the last 48 years.
Speakers addressed the standing-room-only audience by covering every aspect of the building process. Each emphasized the near impossibility it was to have completed such a tall task in one year, needing 345 individuals to make it happen.
President Biff Williams spoke to the audience about the various aspects of growth within DSU during this current school year. He said DSU has welcomed a record setting number of incoming freshmen, thus increasing DSU’s student population to about 9,000. Williams also said DSU has become the largest growing university in the state of Utah.
Student speaker Gabby Benson, a sophomore communication major from Murray, said the Campus View Suites have become her “home away from home.”
She said the Campus View Suites have provided a chance to start life off on the right foot by offering a positive atmosphere with a sense of safety and security. Benson said she would encourage all DSU students to live there.
Benson, Cameron Hill, a freshman double majoring in psychology and exercise major from Grantsville, and Cameron Johnson, a freshman criminal justice major from San Bernardino, California, said they enjoy the free laundry, the community kitchens and the overall atmosphere of the building. Each floor has various amenities offered to DSU students to help make college life that much more entertaining. For example, the fourth floor has a free gym that is accessible to students living in the building.
Hill said the building is beautiful on the inside and out. He said he enjoys the freshly laid grass, banisters and massive portrait.
“For the most part, everybody usually feels the same way I feel about it,” Johnson said. “It’s a nice area [that] looks good, [and is] fun to live with people around the same age.”
With decent sized rooms, free Wi-Fi and great views of the red rock around them, DSU students have been consistently pleased despite the hot water issues.
Williams said the Campus View Suites was just the first of more housing projects to come.
