Midwest Beer Belly Despair Blog

The Nebraska Union: More Traffic than Some State Highways

“I tap three mana and play a celestial dragon!”

The groan of four players swells as the Magic: The Gathering game before them changes in an instant. These players are overly loud, intelligent, completely socially awkward, and present on every single campus in America. Behind them the shouts of the Japanese run Chinese food place are drowned out by the whoosh as a burner for the wok ignites. A little off to the left, stands the gauntlet of student activities, all with a booth and all wanting some of your time. There is no place like Nebraska.

The Nebraska Union on the campus of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln is a very busy place. There is almost always a constant buzz of conversation, rising to a crescendo between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. as thousands of students pour through the building. Whether it’s for lunch, or heading down to the basement bookstore to buy yet another blue book, or sometimes for a speaker or luncheon, there is always a crush of people doing something or going somewhere.

The Union was funded and built in the late 1930’s, being first proposed by student Jack Fischer in the spring of 1935. The university was not very keen on the idea of a student union back then, due mostly to a reluctance to accept public money to help with construction. During the summer of 1935, instead of forwarding the paperwork for funding the Union, the university sat on their hands.

The students coming back felt betrayed. However, they did not allow the lack of enthusiasm from the administrators of UNL to stop them. The students raised over $10,000 and forced the administration to realize that the issue of a Union was not going to go away. The Board of Regents and President of the time agreed to allow the building of the Union and even accepted public works money, to the amount of $180,000 in 1936. Construction began and the Union was finished in 1938.

Having undergone three separate renovations and the addition of a new multicultural center, the Nebraska Union’s main charm is that it is constantly changing while still being recognizable. From my freshman year in 2006, the Union has lost two restaurants, Subway and Burger King, and replaced them with two new ones, Runza and Planet Sub. The Sbarro pizza joint there went out of business and then reopened under new management. The bookstore in the basement has changed its layout three separate times in as many years, and a Dairy Store outlet was put in next to the coffee shop.

No matter any other change however, the people remain the same. Not the individuals themselves but the groups to which they belong and identify. There are always the members of the Greek system there, beautiful and shallow. There are always theatre majors, high on their own self-importance and talking and screaming way louder than they need to. There are always the indie/ hipster/ potheads who smell vaguely like incense and cigarettes and are too damn cool for their own good. There are always the foreign exchange students, hanging out in clumps and speaking incomprehensibly in their native tongue.

If there is a beating heart of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, it’s the Huskers and the Stadium. It’s what most people associate with the university and brings in the most of revenue and attention. But the lungs of UNL are the Nebraska Union, where there is such a collegiate cultural mix that there is always a new breath of fresh air.