McArthur Court student building manager Aaron Nicholson sits patiently in StarDucks waiting for customers to buy coffee or grab a quick snack. Normally Nicholson gets one or two customers a day and throughout the week no more than 10 customers.
Occasionally, business will pick up, but for the most part he spends his time reading to pass the time. Mac Court is the new home for 18 student groups who were relocated to make way for renovation in the EMU. Though it’s a temporary home, student groups wish to see more visibility in what will be their space for the next two years.
“Since our move I feel like our numbers have decreased by at least two thirds,” Veteran’s Center program coordinator Michael Tieman said. “In the old EMU you’d see students walking around and in Mac Court you don’t really see that. I don’t think there’s much advertising for the new EMU south.”
Fourth week into spring term many student groups are adjusting to the new space and a few like the Veteran’s Center, Men’s Center and Club Sports are sorting through a few computer and printer problems. EMU renovation coordinator Dan Geiger has been in charge of handling all the technical difficulties and other problems that student groups might have.
“We still have a couple of windows that need scrapping and printers to be repaired but what I’ve noticed is that there isn’t as many problems as I thought there would be,” Geiger said. “I mean we’ve taken a basketball arena and transformed it into an office space for these student groups. We had to put in power, walls, doors, signage and a whole lot of things to make it a workable space and we pulled it off.”
As for the majority of student groups the biggest challenge has been adjusting to the lack of student visibility and missing their former nearby food options like the Fishbowl and Subway.
“I feel like Mac Court is like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and we need to phase out of that stage,” Student Activities coordinator Mandy Chong said. “You know that time when it was so busy and then it shut down, that’s how Mac Court is. This is a historical building and it’s being used as an office space. It’s pretty cool.”
While Chong loves the building, she and her team can’t help but miss the food from the EMU. Chong has found that she needs to schedule time to eat and that will be a challenge not just for her but for a majority of groups that relied on the EMU for food options.
For many groups, the move in has brought them opportunities to interact with other groups they hadn’t encountered before, and for many that’s a plus. The Men’s Center is one example of that. Their room is split into two rooms shared with the College Democrats. Although the space was unexpected they have learned to embrace it.
“It’s not the walls that make up the student groups it’s the people that do,” Men’s Center director Maj Hutchinson said. “Although we have a smaller place we are finding ways to work around it. More student visibility will pick up within time.”