Heard in the Hall

What Students Want From Their Space

Graphic Clément Liu

This week, the CSU officially said “no” to the Faubourg Ste-Catherine as the official site of the student centre. Now that negotiations on the contract have been put on hold, our union has over $8 million to spend on student space downtown.

We asked students how they wanted the money spent and what they wanted their new student space to look like. Here’s what they said:

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“They should really add a pool—now that would be cool. They should have conference rooms for clubs if they want use them. Not an auditorium, but actual conference rooms, with chairs and tables for 100 to 300 people, projectors and all the IT stuff. A lot of clubs just want to have conferences at school but there is no place [for it].

—Lea Nsouli
BA Child Studies

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“I think the money should be put toward promoting existing on-campus student space like Le Frigo Vert and the People’s Potato should be expanded. Right To Move should be given more space and resources, same with Reggies. We already have quite a few student spaces that need more funding. Instead of going and trying to build elsewhere, maybe we could buy Java U back. Cafe X is a great example of student space and I’d like to see more Cafe X in the Hall building. We should be pushing Chartwells out and using that $8 million to promote student-run businesses, we don’t need to buy another space.”

—Laura Boyd-Clowes
BA Philosophy

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“I think the CSU should spent the money on creating more space for students to study and also space for clubs. I’m part of a club and our office is at Loyola and it’s hard for us to get to Loyola when all of our classes are downtown. It’s also hard for us to get to have people come to our office when it’s difficult to locate.”

—Caroline Cansaran
BA Political Science

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“More communal space—where you can sit down and get work done without it being crazy loud. Personally, I would also like to see at least two pinball machines. Pinball is a great stress-reliever.”

—Ted Minett
BA Urban Planning

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“I would prefer if it was somewhere downtown rather that at the Loyola Campus. As long as it is accessible—I would hate to take a shuttle to the student space. An informal study area, like at the library [would also be nice and] I’d like to see booths like that set up. I’d like an open atrium place because there are lots of student organizations that get cramped up. I’d like an open space for student organizations to get their opinions out. Somewhere where if you had something to say, you could rent a table and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to get a few chairs.”

—Fernando Urruela
BA Political Science

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“There are quite a few [study rooms] but it seems like every year there is more than one of them that are reserved for MBA students which means less for the other students, and obviously there are less MBA students than undergraduate students, so the rooms are a little tight in that sense. Whenever you’re trying to book a room, you have to do it in advance. Maybe centralize the offices, when you’re looking for student council or stuff like that, some people are in this building, some people are in that building, it would be more convenient.”

—Marco Ioffredi
BA Commerce

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“Maybe a bunch of different areas, where you can come and eat or study—somewhere where you can combine the two. A place for meetings, other than the library building. Something more relaxed.”

—Jazmine Mclay
BA Art History