The unveiling of the West Mall's Cesar Chavez statue will be delayed until September because various logistical problems prevented organizers from meeting the original April 24 completion date.

The statue is intended to commemorate the life and accomplishments of Chavez, a leading civil rights and labor activist who fought for social change, according to the Cesar E. Chavez Statue Committee Web site. The statue will be erected on the lawn in front of Battle Hall on the West Mall side of the building.

The project was on schedule up through last semester, but began to encounter various delays this past winter, said Stacy Torres, student chairwoman for the committee. She said the contractor did not have enough time or resources to prepare the site within the originally determined budget, and the artist was experiencing minor setbacks in creating the statue.

"We worked with the Office of Public Affairs and went ahead and decided with the committee to postpone until September," said Torres, a government senior.

Student Government Vice President Marcus Ceniceros, another member of the committee, said the postponement will allow organizers to prepare a major event to celebrate the new statue.

"We want the unveiling to be a really unique ceremony," said Ceniceros, a government junior. "We have speakers and visitors coming in."

Torres said although they have not yet determined the new unveiling date, it is being delayed until the fall semester so that more students, faculty and staff can attend.

"We wanted all students to still be on campus and not interfere with finals," Torres said.

The statue was first proposed in the fall of 2000 when a Hispanic student group, "We are Texas Too," called for a better artistic representation of Hispanic culture on campus, said Margarita Arellano, associate dean of students and the Cesar Chavez statue project coordinator. The University passed a referendum in 2003 that approved construction of the statue, and has since been working to bring the artwork to campus.

The referendum established a $1 fee per student to be added to the undergraduate student tuition for each long semester over a four-year period, Torres said.

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