By: C.A. PRINTUP
Staff Writer
@dontwritedown
Have you ever had a project due and the library was closed? Have you ever had that paper due the next morning and it’s 2 a.m., but you can’t access the printer to print it out? Ever just needed someplace other than your dorm to study late at night? Worry no more because Vice Chancellor Phil Iapalucci and SGA President Stephen Salisbury are working on getting a 24-hour student lounge on campus.
“There has been an attempt over the past several years to try to find a space on campus that is available to students 24 hours a day, and if not 24 hours a day, at least 24 hours from noon on Sunday till midnight on Thursday when a majority of us have class,” Salisbury said. “For example, [Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library] is open 24 hours like that. One of our top goals this year is to find a space to do just that.”
The student lounge would be different from the Notre Dame lounge in the fact that it will most likely not be in the library and that only students will be able to access it through card swipes, much like how many of the rooms in the SAC are closed off unless one has access to the card swipe.
Salisbury disclosed that they are looking at several locations on campus, such as the lounge in the SAC, the Grill, the Fine Arts building, and the Community Building of Campus Housing.
The catch? Logistics. Several of the buildings and spaces have logistical issues besides finding the main power to maintain them and keep them secure.
For example, the student lounge in the SAC and the Grill would be great, except the fact that people would need to use the restrooms and how they would get to and from there without having access to the rest of the building and the Fine Arts building would have to wait for the classes and Disability Services department to move to their permanent locations in the new building on Ironwood before converting it into the lounge.
Security and accessing the building would be easier because, according to Salisbury, all they would need would be the key swipes in order to access them. Getting the money would be harder depending on the space.
“That’s one of the things we have to consider; is this space going to need staff?” Salisbury said. “Is it going to need security, a tech person or something like that? Is that required, is that necessary, and if so, how do we address that and how does it feed into the overall cost?”
Most of the students feel indifferent to it, only because IUSB still has a small residential population and they feel that it would be only beneficial to that small population.
“I don’t really feel like it’s necessary,” Freshman Erin Lambright said. “I mean, a lot of the places [on campus] are open pretty late, aren’t they? If you live in the dorms, you have that central area that’s open for your dorm. If you don’t live on campus, why would you be over here all night? I don’t think it would be necessary. I wouldn’t use it.”
The idea isn’t just for the students already on campus, but would also been a good attraction for students applying to be a part of campus a nice little incentive, according to Salisbury. Some students do feel like it would be needed because of their student habits or needs.
“I’m a night studier, like 2 a.m. so it would really benefit me,” Noelle Scott said.
Salisbury stated that it is a goal to have the lounge in the process of being set up by the end of the 2016-2017 school year and that they would ideally have some sort of café set up in the lounge. It wouldn’t be a Starbucks, but more along the line of what the library has to offer.
Any further comments or inquiries into the student lounge can be sent to the Student Government Associations at stugov@iusb.edu.
