With one major brick in the Davies Center reconstruction project now settled, student senators are turning to the next step in the process.

Now that a decision has been made on the student center’s future location – just south of the current Davies Center and McIntyre Library – the university faces a new issue: parking.

The university stands to lose about 150 parking spaces on lower campus during construction, Student Senate Chief of Staff Michael Umhoefer said Wednesday during a Senate Q-and-A session with students.

“The parking is going to be a heated issue,” he said, adding that extending the Phillips parking lot into the hill beyond Putnam Trail may be a solution.

The parking spots expected to be lost during construction include the metered spaces along the west side of Phillips and along the south side of the current Davies Center, Umhoefer said. He added once construction wraps up, the university will regain about half the parking spaces lost during construction.

“I guess I’m first off glad that the project is going forth,” said Sen. Adam Sorelle, who co-hosted Wednesday’s discussion with Umhoefer. “We really needed a new Davies Center.”

Other topics discussed at Wednesday’s meeting include:

 Proposed revisions to the UW System’s policies for off-campus behavior

 The status of the children’s center reconstruction project

 The state budget’s expected effects on the university

Student Senator Aaron Brewster, who was not at the Q-and-A session, said he and three others planned to drive to Milwaukee this afternoon to petition the System Board of Regents against adopting several proposed policy changes.

Brewster and Umhoefer said the proposed guidelines would tighten the university’s clamp on students’ off-campus behavior and could pose potential concerns for students.

The proposed policy changes could allow the university to punish students for off-campus infractions of city ordinances, Umhoefer and Brewster said. Both explained the current System policy only holds students accountable to the university for state and federal laws.

“It’s very, very vague,” Sorelle said about the proposed policy’s wording during the Q-and-A, adding the rules aren’t fair to students.

Umhoefer said during Wednesday’s session the university is facing significant cuts in state funding, though he said afterwards he didn’t know for sure how much the university was going to lose over the next two years.

“It’s a very, very hard time for the university financially,” he said. “Schools like Madison and Milwaukee have enough liquidity in their student fees and their fundraising cap that they don’t see nearly as dramatic a cut as we’re seeing here.”