No campus student organization will receive permanent space in the Campus Life Center (CLC), according to Assistant Vice President for Community Suzanne Onorato.
Student organizations that need meeting space will be able to use 25Live to reserve spaces for a certain amount of time, Director of the University Center Ben Perlman wrote in a Feb. 6 email to the Wheel.
Assigning a permanent space to any student organization could inhibit collaboration, one of “five [values] that [the CLC] was designed to enhance as a learning community,” Onorato said, adding that assigning permanent spaces to some organizations might “disempower” other student groups.
The goal of the CLC is to welcome all students, provide an “exciting dining experience,” foster collaboration, host large events and meetings and be “uniquely Emory,” according to Onorato.
Onorato added that student focus groups conducted by Campus Life expressed a desire for the CLC to offer space to all student groups.
Cultural organizations such as the Emory Black Student Union (EBSU) and Centro Latino will keep their respective rooms in the Alumni Memorial University Center (AMUC), and a committee of students and administrators called the Campus Life Cultural Centers Task Force initiated talks in January 2017 to provide recommendations for use of the new CLC space.
“We have made some great progress but have taken a pause as our next steps require that we finalize the space that is available in the AMUC for the cultural centers,” Onorato wrote. “We hope to finalize that prior to [the] semester’s end.”
The CLC student space policy spurred some student organizations to search for alternative spaces. Emory Entrepreneur and Venture Management (EEVM) President Sahej Singh (18B) said that EEVM has secured a location in Clairmont Tower, but he hopes that someday EEVM will be able to move to the CLC.
“[EEVM is] trying to build this incubation space,” Singh said. “Hopefully down the line that will be in the CLC [because] it’s central on campus.”
But not all groups looking for an official, permanent space have found a base outside the CLC. The Muslim Student Association (MSA) had been hoping to obtain a permanent spot in the CLC.
“There are a lot of other organizations in the same boat [without a designated space],” MSA President Nora Elmubarak (19C) said.
Editor’s note: Nora Elmubarak is a member of the Wheel’s Editorial Board.
Joshua Lee is a College freshman from Pittsburg, Kansas.
