By Hailey Heinz

Since its opening this semester, the new branch of the Center for Community Service has seen its share of traffic. Some students are looking to start doing service for the first time, others want to continue with work they did in their hometown and a few students are just looking for STA Travel, employees said.

The office space on the first floor of the Curry Student Center where STA Travel was located is now a satellite location for the Center of Community Service. The original location at Columbus Place is still open, but the new location brings community service to a place where students can already be found on a regular basis.

“I think that being here, things will be a lot more publicized,” said Alishka Ostrander, a junior psychology major who is on her second co-op at the center. “As a freshman, I would have been ecstatic if there was something like this, but truthfully, I didn’t even know there was a center for community service.”

Ostrander spends time coordinating events and works with students who come into the center, helping to match them up with service opportunities.

For students who already took advantage of the location at Columbus Place, the new office offers the same services in a more convenient location.

“It hasn’t really changed what we’ve offered, but it will because we’ll have a better idea of what’s needed by being closer to students,” said Jeff Doggett, director of community service.

One goal, said Assistant Director and Program Coordinator for the Center Zandra Kambysellis, is to work more closely with student groups, including the Student Gov-ernment Association (SGA). Nicole Martino, SGA vice president for student services, said SGA hopes to increase its interaction with the center.

“I think we’ve always had a positive interaction with them, but it will just be easier now because they’re right downstairs [from our third floor office],” she said.

For students discovering the center for the first time, it offers many opportunities for individuals, groups and even classrooms, through the service-learning program.

“I have three semesters left, and there’s so much I want to do,” Ostrander said.

She said there are opportunities she never knew existed, and wishes she discovered them earlier.

The decision to allocate the space to the Center of Community Service was made by the Student Center Governing Board (SCGB), which is comprised of students, representatives of student groups, faculty and alumni. The board is currently chaired by Martino.

Allyson Savin, who was the chair while the space allocation decision was being made, said the board waited for proposals to come forward, then narrowed them down. Savin said there was very little publicity about the space’s availability.

“If we had said, ‘Hey, we have open space,’ we would have been inundated with proposals,” she said. “We kind of kept it on the down low.”

The result of the proceedings is that only two groups presented proposals for the space. One was the Center of Community Service, and the other was a nail salon. Savin said the board discussed what kind of services they wanted the student center to offer and decided the Center for Community Service would be more valuable.

The decision, Savin said, was also impacted by public relations concerns in the wake of last year’s Super Bowl riots.

“When you look at the past year, never before have so many departments and administrators and student groups been on the same mission to repair relations and make good relationships with the community,” Savin said. “We have so many people whose number one goal for the year is to repair relations. And that was certainly a factor.”

Doggett also made reference to the riots, although he said it’s important to know the center is not a new institution.

“The Center of Community Service has been here for five years, so we long ago recognized the need to have students active in the community,” he said. “We’re constantly trying to do that. Has that message been heightened since the riots? Yes. Has it changed our core mission? No.”

The center will be offering new extended hours for students. Hours are Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.