From full study cubicles in Lauinger Library, to clubs without rooms of their own, students at Georgetown struggle to find space on campus. Student space is an issue of such growing concern for Georgetown students that a grassroots movement began pushing the administration on the issue last spring. The Student Space Working Group’s poll, in which more than half of those who responded were dissatisfied with the amount of space available, has highlighted this growing discontent.
Although the University has made plans for increased student space in its upcoming 10 Year Plan, current students deserve some sort of change while they’re still on campus. While it is commendable that administrators are regularly meeting with the working group to eventually improve the situation, study space, social space, meeting space, and athletic space are all areas in dire need of expansion right now.
In the immediate future, the University should make room for large organizations to have their own space on campus. The Student Activities Commission took away club space in the Leave Center in 2008, with the intention to let groups then rent it out, but this plan has not succeeded. Groups deserve official space within which to operate, and so more room should be made in places like New South’s Riverside Lounge, as well as in the Leavey Center.
Additionally, the University should consider adding more social and study space. Buildings like Healy Hall captured the imagination of prospective students, not the dingy concrete of Lauinger; however, in the working group’s survey, the largest percentage of respondents (33 percent) said they considered the library to be the actual center of student life, although 44 percent wished it were Healy and the Dahlgren Quad. Student space could be reinstituted in either Healy or the old Jesuit Residence, which is currently not in use, but would require substantial renovation.
Our location in the nation’s capital, with little room to expand, certainly constrains Georgetown’s ability to create the expansive amount of student space on rural campuses. Limited space does not, however, excuse the University for poorly utilizing the space it does or could have for students. It is time for the talks between the administration and the working group to translate into space that will better meet the needs of students on campus.
