With the highest number of voters in 28 years deciding the fate of the referendum, the majority of the voting student population said “no” to the proposed $36.1 million cost of a new student center.

The vote tally ended with the defeat of the referendum by an almost 4-to-1 ratio, with 1,435 voting “no” and 386 choosing “yes.”

“I don’t think the idea is bad,” junior Nathan Knick said. “But the timing is horrible.”

With budget cuts basically guaranteed and tuition on the rise, the timing of the proposal struck students and even those associated with the Davies expansion committee as unfortunate.

Vice Chancellor Andy Soll said the one overriding message from the student population was that, with all of the uncertainties with the budget and tuition costs, students were compelled to strike down the referendum at this time.

Soll said he thinks no members of the committee were surprised because they sensed support was not there for the project.

Knick said his friends were all against it.

Another difficulty students had with the proposal was the lack of a plan or description of what the new center would look like.

“I’m a visual guy,” sophomore Darrin Wurz said. “I like to see pictures, diagrams and models.”

The costs and benefits of a new building didn’t match up for him, he said.

Wurz said that, due to him graduating in two-and-a-half years, he would not even see the new building in its completed form.

Senior Andy Oettinger, a Davies expansion committee member, said in an e-mail that negative publicity is responsible for the outcome of the referendum vote.

“Unfortunately, the information was largely skewed,” he said. “Too few students were given an opportunity to evaluate the facts for themselves.”

Oettinger stands by his recommendation for a new student center and said the building needs to approved and built as soon as possible.

The vote results don’t mean the end of a Davies expansion or a new student center, but Soll said the expansion committee’s challenge is to “turn the sentiment around.”

“It doesn’t make things easier,” he said, “but it certainly doesn’t kill the whole idea.”

The committee did not develop a second plan before the vote, Soll said. The next step in the process is uncertain, he said.

If the information on the new student center proposal would have been released sooner, Knick said he would have been able to make a better assessment of the proposed center.

The committee may have planned it a while ago, but he said the information only got to him a couple of weeks before he voted on it.

Although he became aware of the new plan six weeks ago, Wurz said he felt students were not involved and informed enough on the project’s beginning.

He suggested that students receive an e-mail when a new plan is developed and said more students should be on the Davies expansion committee.

When the new student center proposal was released, a brochure on the plan became available on campus. The brochure made an analogy suggesting that buying a new car when an old one needs major repairs is prudent, and the same logic applies to Davies.

“I’d like to buy a new car,” Wurz said. “But I don’t necessarily need it.”