For the first time in five years, Stamp Student Union welcomed a new director yesterday to replace Gretchen Metzelaars, who said in April that she would take over a vice president post at Ohio State University.
Marsha Guenzler-Stevens, who has worked in the student union since 1987, said it’s too early for her to take stances on issues such as replacing the McDonald’s in the food court and renegotiating the Barnes & Noble bookstore contract — concerns students have raised in recent years.
Guenzler-Stevens said she would need to get more student feedback before she could develop official positions.
“We’ll continue to be the great sponge, take in information from folks,” said Guenzler-Stevens, who most recently served as the student union’s activities director. “We’ve got really terrific staff members who work inside of an organization that has policies and procedures, some of which we definitely need to look at.”
Yesterday, Guenzler-Stevens took the reins from Metzelaars, who, as director of the student union, created an art purchasing program that let students select pieces that would be displayed in the building, lobbied for the expansion of the Alternative Breaks Program, advocated for sustainable practices and helped expand and increase the staff of the Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy program.
“Dr. Metzelaars was very committed to being responsive to the diversity of the campus population and wanted everyone who came to the Stamp to feel very welcomed and included,” said Jim Osteen, the assistant vice president of student affairs, who led the search committee that appointed Guenzler-Stevens.
“[Metzelaars] was very much an advocate for students,” added Steve Gnadt, assistant director of the student union. “I thoroughly enjoyed working for Gretchen. She believed in hiring good people, and she was very supportive.”
But Metzelaars’ years at the student union weren’t free from controversy, either.
In recent years, students have called for the student union to discontinue its contract with McDonald’s because of the corporation’s alleged animal cruelty. Others have sought to have the University Book Center converted into a student-run cooperative that would replace today’s Barnes & Noble-run facility. Both initiatives were deemed unrealistic by student union officials.
Guenzler-Stevens came to the university in 1982 as the assistant director of campus activities and, starting in 1987, served as the student union’s assistant development director before she was promoted to her most recent post.
Metzelaars, who is a longtime friend and colleague of Guenzler-Stevens, said that she is confident the incoming director will excel at her new position.
“She’s been called a campus treasure, and she literally is,” Metzelaars said. “And she will take that to wonderful heights.”
Metzelaars said she is still nostalgic about the university she worked at for 15 years.
“The people I work with at Maryland will always be my family,” she said. “I don’t miss traffic; I don’t miss the 97 degrees, hazy, hot and humid, but Maryland is home and family for me.”
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