I am ready for the snow to melt and for it to be a distant memory. I am ready to see the Campus Green again and enjoy the in between classes socializing. And yes, I am ready for the normal reasons that students are excited for warm days; the beginning of a tan, the end of classes and the start of summer. But I am ready for all these and for an entirely different reason.
The weeks and weeks of snow illustrated that the city of Denver has no idea how to plow and clear snow and that DU has no place for students to congregate… when the weather is bad.
Yes, the Campus Green is in the heart of campus and in our usually sunny weather Frisbee games and lunch outside are common sites, but where should students go when the weather is not good or, gasp, they have meetings to hold or work to do. We have no adequate place to be on campus to meet or commuter students to store their stuff for a few hours.
The Driscoll Center almost functions correctly, but not quite, which is worse.
Yes, there are food options. There is the Commons, with ample seating and a variety of food choices, but let’s be honest the hours are just not sufficient. Yes, they are better than they were at the beginning of the year, but being open until 4 p.m. would be a huge improvement.
There is the Pub for the sit down dining experience. It has standard Pub fare, but really, plan on an hour minimum from start to finish. It has the pace of fine dining but the quality of a bar.
The all popular Jazzman’s CafCB) offers coffee, smoothies and ready made salads and sandwiches for students to grab between classes. However, the line can be so long that 10 minutes is hardly sufficient time, not to mention the scarcity of couches.
More food options are greatly needed. There should be more than one place to grab a ready made sandwich or salad. And there should be more than one dining option. For example, the University of Washington’s student center, the HUB features a dining court with many different local and fast food restaurants. There are many coffee shops, a game room, a bowling area and many meeting rooms. Yes, I know that the UW has 31,000 undergraduates and DU 4,500 but couldn’t we do a variation on a theme?
What about those scary rooms in the bowels of Driscoll all those small meeting rooms that most students couldn’t locate with a compass and a map because they are so off the beaten path. What about a map on both sides of the Driscoll Bridge? And maybe a list of rooms in a place people can see by Jazzman’s so students know they can use them
We, as students, need a space to be– just be– on campus. More to the point the commuter students are left high and dry or in this case low and wet they have no place to leave their stuff. Why not install in lockers in a convenient place? This would enable students to leave their stuff in between classes. Or, put the lockers in those empty rooms and maybe some couches, so commuters have a quiet place to take a moment. Just an idea.
The bottom line is Driscoll needs a facelift and it needs it badly. DU is going to have to provide a more cohesive and useful student center in order to attain its (rightful) place as one of the best colleges in the nation. It needs to provide its student a center that is both fun and useful. After almost four great years here, I would not change my college experience for anything and I know what a great place DU is. But I also know, how terribly inadequate Driscoll is.
