While many of their classmates lounged at home and took vacations this summer, Steve Munch and Jeff Dunlap were planning building additions and purchasing eco-friendly fuel.

And there’s been plenty of glad-handing and schmoozing for Munch and Dunlap, Kansas University’s new student body president and vice president.

“For us, it’s been a lot of making the initial contacts and talking up issues,” Munch said.

It’s all in preparation for hitting the ground running when the fall semester starts. That’s when the real work begins.

“I think what we’ve been doing has been getting positive reaction and positive feelings,” Munch said. “We’ll have a group of 80 senators to do this work. Right now we don’t.”

That work is a full plate of goals, even by typical ambitious student leader standards.

It includes assisting with fund raising for the new Multicultural Resource Center, which will be constructed adjacent to the Kansas Union.

The KU Endowment Association says it needs an additional $500,000 to start construction. Student fees will contribute $1.5 million, and a donor has pledged $1 million to the $3 million project.

It also includes working with KU Athletics and recreation leaders on an addition to the 1-year-old Student Recreation Fitness Center. A deal struck with the athletic department will pay students for unused basketball tickets, and the money will be used to fund the $6 million expansion, which will include basketball and racquetball courts and space for weight equipment.

“Maybe it’s not a bigger year, but we’ll have tangible things to show students,” Munch said. “So much of what we do is policy work. We’re hoping to have brick-and-mortar buildings.”

Other items on the leaders’ agenda include:

Steve Munch, Bellvue, Neb., junior, will be student body president in 2004-2005. Munch took office April 28.

• Convincing administrators to establish “tuition contracts” for incoming freshmen. The contracts would lock in tuition rates for four years for new students.

“They’re willing to listen,” Munch said of administrators’ reaction to the proposal.

• Switching KU on Wheels bus fuel to biodiesel, which is a mix of traditional diesel and a soy product.


Kansas University Student body vice president Jeff Dunlap, left, and president Steve Munch want to make KU Student Senate relevant to students.

The change should stifle or eliminate the clouds of black exhaust smoke that buses emit.

“Students shouldn’t have to get a lungful of black diesel fumes every time a bus goes by,” Dunlap said. “This will beautify campus and be good for the environment.”

• Creating a university-wide conservation office that will examine such issues as recycling and energy use.
• Registering students to vote before the November elections.

Munch and Dunlap were elected to their offices this spring and took office April 28. Munch, 20, is from Bellevue, Neb., and will be a junior. He is believed to be the first sophomore elected student body president.

Dunlap, 21, is a senior from Leawood.

Munch, majoring in sociology and history, said he also would like to increase interest and participation in student government.

“A lot of people do care, but I think a lot more should care,” he said. “It’s a problem we face every year. It’s important to show what we do does affect students.”