Student leaders of the School of Foreign Service Academic Council sat down with representatives of the Office of the Provost last week to discuss their proposal to increase the amount and quality of student space in the Intercultural Center.
According to SFSAC Vice President and Junior Representative Megan Murday (SFS ‘15), the proposal outlines the need to make the ICC Galleria “a more student-focused space” as one of the most utilized academic spaces on-campus outside of Lau. Representatives of the Provost’s Office outlined plans to increase the quantity and quality of furniture on the first and second floors, install laptop stands in the hallways, add more tables and chairs in the same style as those in Regents and Hariri, and replace underused hallway computers with single-student booths.
The formal proposal was drafted by a committee of representatives from SFSAC, The Corp, the International Relations Club, and the Georgetown University Student Association.
Kyle Zhu (SFS ‘14), SFSAC president and member of the proposal committee, marked this proposal as one of the SFSAC’s first attempts to be more proactive on campus. “Instead of looking for ways to fund new buildings and spaces … more focus should be placed on optimizing spaces that Georgetown already has,” he said, adding the proposal has “expanded into a review of the entire ICC.”
Murday and Zhu are not aware of any opposition to the proposal, but members of SFSAC have stressed the need to proceed with caution in striking a balance with all stakeholders. “Faculty are concerned about noise and the Provost is concerned about the capacity to continue holding events. These factors mean that this project includes a lot more planning … than originally thought,” Zhu said.
According to Murday, the Provost’s Office contracted an engineering firm to investigate the structural challenges of upgrading the electrical capacity, lighting, and soundproofing in the ICC Galleria.
Plans will be hopefully solidified by the end of the semester, according to Zhu, and students can expect to start seeing changes within the next year with the changes to the first and second floors arriving “as early as before this summer’s first session.”
Future discussion of the project will take place “with Provost [Groves] during his student engagement meeting in March,” Murday said.
Groves, who is out of town, could not be reached for comment.
