“It is an amazing space, but it’s just a space that doesn’t really come alive until we have a plan for what we are going to do with it,” said Spence. “We have spent a long time thinking of the right people to involve in the project, to make sure that we are really considering everything that students want to see in this space, and serve the community as best as we can.”
Proposed blueprint for the second floor of the Student Center. Image courtesy of Ronald P. Kirkpatrick
The new Student Union Galleries (SUGs) will be located on this floor as well. Its ground-floor glass walls will allow pedestrians to view student work from the street, and allow the general public easy access as well. Michael Ryan, Director of Exhibition Curricula, is excited by what this means for students. “The interesting part of this is that it shows that the school really believes in what students are doing,” he told F. “The school has never had a gallery on the ground floor, other than the small ‘boomerang’ space in the [Sharp] building,” he added. “We are making exhibition spaces more respectful of students’ work than ever before.”
The second floor of the student center will house Student Government and Student Life offices, as well as two meeting rooms for student use. More importantly, this second floor will offer something that we have all been waiting for: food. Lots of it, and better than ever, according to the administration. It will house a huge cafeteria with plenty of seating for eating and chatting, and SAIC is secretly rethinking the school’s food service. Although the specifics haven’t been released, we’ll soon know the names of the new vendors that will provide food to the school. In addition, in the fall of 2012, all students will have access to a meal plan.
“We are still working on the exact details of that meal plan, but it is going to be much more substantial than what we have. We are excited to make that change, too,” said Spence. All interested students will have access to the same deal as those who live in the residence hall, and the Articard system for buying food on campus will still exist. When asked why these food service improvements took so long to happen, Spence explained, “A lot of it had to do with the space. We are very limited in terms of what people can cook in the spaces we have. Having this new area is great in terms of what we will have to offer to vendors, and we have noticed that they are very excited to have an opportunity to work at SAIC.”
The new student center will be ready around April 2012, but the exact opening date has not yet been released. According to Jessogne, Neiman has expressed interest in attending the opening event, and is excited to visit the space and spend time with SAIC students. So one more year, and the LeRoy Neiman student center will welcome us all. Closing a long interview with F, Dublon noted, “The best conversations and the best idea exchanges can really happen when there is one central place to go. We don’t even know what we are missing.” These are changes that will hopefully be worth the wait.
