By Steve Babcock
The Student Center Governing Board (SCGB) approved $75,000 for improvements to the Curry Student Center Monday, raising concerns of student groups about the availability of space for events on campus.
The SCGB is a standing committee of the Student Government Association, and approves the $75,000 annually from the Plant Improvement Fund, a fee collected from vendor’s in the student center.
For the improvements, the SCGB appropriated almost two-thirds of its money toward three projects. The improvements include two new video screens that will be integrated with the “Today in the Student Center” system that provides campus updates on the ground floor for $23,000, construction of an E-bar and computer counters in the commuter services area that will run $12,000 and a re-upholstering of furniture in the indoor quad totaling $7,000.
Despite its governance over the Plant Improvement Fund, committee chairman and SGA Vice President of Student Affairs Michael Romano, along with the rest of the SCGB, still take the issue of space availability seriously. With the Plant Improvement Fund, Romano said that the Curry Student Center Ballroom, which he called “inadequate,” could be improved if not expanded.
“With more student groups than ever before, and plans underway for over a million dollars for activities on campus next year, it is unacceptable that students have such difficulty finding venues to hold university-wide events,” Romano said. “Students have called me in the past days saying that they were having trouble booking events.”
Robert Grier, the university’s director of operations for the Curry Student Center, and the person in charge of looking at space and access issues, said that he wasn’t aware of the problems Ramano was bringing up.
“I thought we [had] easy access facilities,” Grier said. “Major facilities are a scarce commodity, I’m aware of that. But student groups are given preference in booking the facilities we currently have.”
“The ballroom is in bad shape and doesn’t have enough space,” Romano said, “BU and BC both have large ballrooms to hold events. The Egan Auditorium is alright, but it only seats 200. An integral element in bringing bigger acts and a higher level of student life on campus are the facilities the university provides for its students.”
Romano added that the ballroom could be a start to bringing bigger acts, and said that the recently raised Student Activities Fee will assist in such an initiative. He came back to the issue of space, though, as being the key element that could land Northeastern more major events and more time for student groups to run the programs they want to run.
With its cracked pillars and a relatively small capacity of 400, the ballroom has been limited to use for only several lectures, and less events that encompass people from outside the Northeastern community.
Romano also commented on Blackman Auditorium, calling it “reminiscent of a high school auditorium,” and citing the Kevin Spacey event as an example. Romano said that event showed an “irrefutable need” for a place on campus that possesses more room, and an ability to handle “bigger acts.”
Grier maintained that Romano’s discussion of such issues in relation to the Plant Improvement Fund was “not appropriate.”
“First, the Plant Improvement Fund is not capable of addressing such issues as space on campus,” he said. “Those are multi-million dollar issues. Also, the access to facilities we provide is adequate. We would look at such issues if the problems arose.”
Despite Romano’s constant calls for improvement, his powers with SGA give him the oversight of the PIF, which was enacted Monday. After that, SGA can enact legislation that becomes a reccomendation to the administration. Unofficially, Romano can work to rally student groups to his side, which calls such groups as the Council for University Programming about a lack of access. He has already begun doing that.
