Where I was last [Williams], we did tear down an old student center and build a magnificent new one. But that’s in a campus with 2,000 students, and you can build a venue that holds easily 1,000. We have 8,000 undergrads, so this whole idea that one single building is going to be large enough that, you know, you can go there and meet your friends. By the Williams metric, it would have to be able to hold 4,000. Good luck with that. — University President Morton Schapiro
Growing up, I learned there was a distinct difference between “wants” and “needs.” You want candy, Mom advised, you don’t need it. You want a new Beast Wars action figure, but you really need to do your homework.
Even Santa couldn’t necessarily deliver what I wanted. My parents advised me to give Santa some options, in case he couldn’t find something. My world, perhaps prematurely, was tempered with realism. I developed an appreciation for simple things.
I don’t get the impression that current Associated Student Government leadership had the same experience.
For those of you who have thus far dodged ASG’s PR efforts, let me help them do their job. They want to build a brand new student center in the Garrett Evangelical Seminary parking lot — to the tune of $95 million. The goal is to make this center a priority in the university strategic plan, which is slated to be revealed Jan. 1 of next year. And they’re trying to pull this off just as the endowment is starting to bounce back.
This isn’t the best idea. It’s receiving lukewarm reviews from top administration officials — meaning that the next three months will most likely be a waste of ASG’s time. It’s also an expensive, clumsy solution to a pretty ethereal problem.
University President Morton Schapiro doesn’t sound too excited about the endeavor.
“I’m not so sure that the single enormous new student center [...] is really the answer here,” Schapiro told North by Northwestern on Sept. 28. “It isn’t clear to me that the answer to the lack of community problem here that people always talk about is to build some mega student center on the lot at Garrett.”
Schapiro’s idea — don’t go big, go small. “I think having lots of cafés and lots of smaller student centers might be a good idea, maybe a better idea, at least for the immediate future,” he said.
Schapiro also mentioned the possibility of utilizing parts of the Jacobs Center as a supplementary space, depending on whether its current inhabitant — the Kellogg School of Management — decides to move out. To be fair, the initiative has said it’s amenable to putting the new student center in Jacobs. But Schapiro didn’t stop there. He listed a handful of large research universities and elite schools that don’t have a central student center at all.
But Ash Jaidev, director of the New Student Center Initiative, isn’t particularly worried. On Thursday, the Weinberg junior sat down with Schapiro in a meeting that he described as “very cordial.” Schapiro agreed with Jaidev that Northwestern’s “sense of community” was lacking, but didn’t give a yes to the Garrett plan.
“Students have needs that are not being met by Norris,” Jaidev said on Wednesday. “If we show Morty Schapiro that there is huge support for this, he could come around to the idea of a new student center.”
Jaidev does seem to have an ally in Vice President for Student Affairs William Banis, who retires next year.
“[A student center at Garrett] would be ideal,” Banis said. “A lot of people would support that as the best possible location.”
Banis stressed that there are many players involved in the strategic planning process, and they all want attention. He couldn’t indicate how a new center at Garrett would be weighed in the final strategic plan. Like Schapiro, he suggested that freed space that Kellogg currently occupies could be used as a supplement to the space at Norris.
Yet another influential party, Provost Daniel Linzer, remains cryptic.
“I do believe that providing the right kind of space is important to build community and to enhance the student experience,” Linzer said in an email. “Whether or not that means a new student center or some other option remains to be seen.”
Now, if ASG gets its way, what exactly should we expect? In the initiative’s own words, the new center would be:
“A place to house all of our interests and passions, within reach from all corners of campus. A place where we can meet, perform, socialize, eat and have fun, all under one roof. Above all, our campus needs a place for us to feel at home.” It would also house most administrative offices that students have to deal with. Most importantly, it would apparently solve the “urgent need to foster a shared Northwestern culture.”
Essentially, it would be Norris, but bigger, better, more expansive, and — God help us all — easier on the eyes. And in a world where ASG is (often unfairly) accused of doing nothing, this center would act as a monument to the contrary.
But can a single building foster a “shared Northwestern culture?” That’s the rationale for spending $95 million all at once, instead of peppering campus with smaller, less expensive improvement projects.
When you have 8,000 students in one place, divisions will occur. Sometimes these are blatant, geographic: Greek and non-Greek, North Campus and South Campus. But there are latent forms too. Specific interests divide us into disparate student groups. Divergent senses of humor lead us to find some people funnier than others. Many people hang out with those who dress like, look like, worship like or act like them. These boundaries are both natural and unavoidable.
Think about a meeting you had in Norbucks or in the Norris food court with that group you’re involved with. You probably noticed a handful of other groups there too. Did your group go over and discuss with them? Shake hands? Break bread?
How often do you use more than one administrative service in a day? Enough to justify a $95 million solution to put them all in one place, thereby making travel between those services more convenient?
And theater. Will you, while in the throes of an ugly schedule, drop everything you’re doing to see a play because you walk past a ticketing table that happens to be located in the same building you’re doing your homework in?
Will students who live near Lisa’s trek to Garrett in the dead of winter? Will the ones who live near Fran’s?
If you find that your answers to these questions are largely “no,” then you have to ask yourself what — other than bowling alleys — this $95 million gets us. If you find that you mostly answered “yes,” sign the NSC petition.
Does the problem of campus divisions need to be addressed? Probably. But an effective solution will have to be more nuanced. It sounds like Morty is already thinking along those lines.
As is normally the case, ASG’s hearts are in the right place — but they’ve taken a bad idea and run with it. Sprinting away with them is time better spent elsewhere, and if things go their way, money similarly squandered.
Editor’s note: Ash Jaidev contributed to North by Northwestern in October 2009.