By Dinah Alobeid

Comfy chairs, a pool table and a television greet students as they enter the building. But the lobby isn’t the entrance of a West Village residence hall, it’s the waiting room in University Health Services’ new summer home.

“I’m curious to see what it looks like inside,” said Tim Grinnell, a first year graduate student waiting at Health Services Monday. He said he thinks the office is capable of running out of Willis Hall for the summer months.

“I’m sure the volume isn’t too much in the summer, so they can probably get away with it,” he said.

The office has moved out of the Forsyth Building for the summer so renovations can be made to the building, said Roberta Berrien, executive director of University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS). In the fall, UHCS will be united under one roof in the renovated building.

Each suite on the first floor of Willis Hall is divided into two exam rooms, said Westina Fernandes, an administrative assistant. She said the setup works fine for the summer months, when the volume of students coming through the office is much lower than throughout the rest of the year.

Until the fall, Counseling Services will remain in its original location at 302 Ell Hall, Berrien said. Construction is scheduled to finish Aug. 15.

The construction will modernize the clinic and give it a more “doctor’s office feel,” Berrien said. She said she hopes to make it a more open and comfortable environment rather than the small space it once was.

Originally, the clinic was slated to move to a series of trailers in Columbus Lot. When administration offered Willis Hall, unoccupied by students during the summer months, as an option, Berrien said, she took the university up on its offer.

However, the transition has not been completely free of problems, Berrien and Fernandes said.

“It’s coming along, it did take awhile to get things set up,” Fernandes said. “We all had to pitch in and pack things and make sure everything was ready as much as it could be.”

Berrien said working in Willis Hall is more comfortable now that the office is settled into its new space.

“Willis Hall has been great. We’ve had a lot more room than we would have in trailers,” Berrien said. “The students have been really wonderful, saying it feels very professional. They are embracing the change.”

Fernandes said she also has an optimistic outlook even though she said the process started out slow.

“Takes a little while for things to get settled, there are still some things that have to be done, but everybody’s cooperating.”

In Willis Hall, all the same services are available to students, from physicals to gynecological exams to blood tests. The labs set up in Willis Hall are very similar to those in the Forsyth Building, Berrien said.

With signs and maps around the Forsyth Building and on Leon Street, as well as a large red sign on Willis Hall, students said they are managing to find their way to the health center easily.

“It was pretty easy to find. They have a nice little map I followed,” Grinnell said.