Many upperclassmen and returning students had a surprise waiting for them upon their arrival back to campus. The seal outside of the Haslam College of Business on the Ped Walkway had been repaired.

For as long as many students can remember, the seal, bearing the image of the torch and positioned at the heart of campus, has been cracked. Throughout the last semester, thanks to the hard work of staff and student government representatives, the torch symbol has been repaired.

Senators Kevin Ho and Nathan Schroeder co-sponsored a bill to repair the seal. They were inspired by walking past the broken seal every day on the way to class and being disturbed by its state of disrepair. They discussed with other students and found a similar sentiment. From there they decided to make a change.

“Being able to fix one of the most important and prominent features on the Ped Walkway, visible to thousands of students daily, is a pretty important tradition,” said Ho.

They got to work by contacting the school and polling students. While it wasn’t on the school’s immediate radar, Ho and Schroeder stressed the importance of the project to them. They worked with maintenance to discuss a budget and convinced the school of the prominence of the symbol.

Meanwhile, in the SGA, the bill was being brought for its first and second readings. During the first reading, it was read and assigned to the campus infrastructure committee. It was well vetted, having been discussed with the administration and the student body. The only major revisions were those of grammar and wording. The bill passed nearly unanimously, Speaker Campbell Butler remarked.

“There was a lot of research and hard work done on the front end by Kevin and Nathan specifically,” said Butler. “They did an exemplary job of working with administration prior to working on and passing the bill itself.”

Butler was satisfied with the coordination from the administration. She sees working between SGA and the administration as a two way street.

“We don’t ever want them to ever feel like they had no idea what was going on,” said Butler. “They’re very receptive to student government and the student voice.”

The estimated cost of the repair was $10,000 to $20,000, with the school contracting out to a private company for repairs. The repair ended up costing the school $13,500. The emblem was cracked because of vehicle travel over it. University vehicles are commonly driven on the Ped Walkway to conduct maintenance and the emblem was originally designed to withstand it.

Erosion led to deterioration of the support of the seal. The repair was complex, requiring them to lift the emblem and restructure the support. Repairs were accomplished while students were away over the summer to have it prepared and ready by the time school started again.

As for future maintenance, it is overseen by the same staff that takes care of the seals, torchbearer and Smokey statues. With the continued efforts of the SGA and the university, the beauty of our campus is in caring hands.