NIU’s Alumni Association is calling on its members to help fund a $6 million Alumni Association building on campus.

Before Saturday’s football game, the association announced the start of fundraising for a new Alumni and Visitors Center.

The Alumni Association promoted the campaign throughout the Homecoming football game against Western Michigan. It showed drawings of the new structure on the stadium scoreboard and passed out Thunderstix with the Alumni Association’s contact information on them, asking all alumni to show their support.

Mike Malone, vice president of university relations and development, said the Alumni Association already has more than $3.5 million in commitments.

“We are trying to get the alumni excited about the prospect of this university,” Malone said. “And we want to honor them with a new facility.”

According to a university press release, Dennis and Stacey Barsema made a naming gift commitment of $2.5 million, and the NIU Alumni Association has pledged $500,000 to the project.

To make room for the new building, the current Alumni House, 321 N. Annie Glidden Road, will have to be demolished.

The new Alumni and Visitors Center will be 37,000 square feet in size compared to the current home which is 1,200 square feet.

The new facility would feature, among other things, a 4,100-square-foot ballroom, a faculty library and a small alumni store. Space also would be available for the Student Orientation Staff to use when giving campus tours.

Malone said the building will have recognition of alumni accomplishments throughout the building, giving students who arrive on campus for their orientation a “good first impression.”

Lee McCauley, assistant vice president for alumni relations, said one problem the Alumni Association currently has is that alumni come back to visit the campus, but the association has no idea that they are here, because they don’t stop by. She said this new building would change that by making a tremendous statement of respect for NIU alumni.

“We really want the ability to say to the alumni, ‘You have a home on this campus,’” McCauley said.

McCauley also said this new building is not just an office building, but a public building for the university community.

There still is no word on when construction will start for the new home, but Malone said they hope to be moved into the new facility by 2005.