News

Instead of old ping-pong tables, Niznik hopes to see the basement furnished with couches, games and a big mural; Photo: Jade Thomas ’20
Instead of old ping-pong tables, Niznik hopes to see the basement furnished with couches, games and a big mural; Photo: Jade Thomas ’20

Student Activities Office crafts big plans for Sadove basement

By Rylee Carrillo-Waggoner ’19

Tags news

Sadove’s basement went out of use several years ago when it was removed from the list of social spaces for events allowed to include alcohol. Director of Student Activities Noelle Niznik explained, “With the Sadove Programming initiative, we wanted to make sure our event was sub-free all of the time. We want the space to feel welcoming to everyone, and if there were parties downstairs on the weekends, we found that other students were uncomfortable utilizing the other areas of the building.” Consequently, the basement has remained barren since then.

The plan to renovate the basement has been on the to-do list for multiple summers now.  However, it has consistently taken a back seat to other projects and jobs. This semester, Adrian Summers ’19, class representative for Student Assembly on the assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee and a Student Diversity Council (SDC) member involved with multiple cultural organizations, offered a solution. Summers explained that he heard that Niznik and graduate assistant Jayla Greene were planning to redo the basement and, as Greene described, “thought it could be a great opportunity and project for the SDC to get involved with.”

The goal now is to create a student-designed space. Greene elaborated, “The best part about this Sadove basement project is that with encouragement from Noelle, the students have been given the chance to share their ideas in regards to what they want to see this space become. The goal is for the basement to actually serve a purpose and overall just be a welcoming space for students to interact and hopefully relax! I am excited for the students to see their vision come to life.”

In order to include student input, Student Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee (CAC) sent out an email to the student body asking students what they would like the basement to become. One of the bigger ideas currently floating around is turning the basement into an arcade space. Regardless of what the space becomes, there will be one prominent feature there: a mural. Summers proposed to SDC that each organization could create their own small mural, and then together the groups can all create one larger mural, using the mural to express how the groups operate in conjunction with one another.

Summers also felt that SDC needed a project to become a fully realized entity. He noted, “SDC is not a fully realized entity on campus. I feel as though we’re almost like a living, breathing Google calendar. No one on campus knew we existed. We didn’t know what our job was, and I felt as though the mural was a fun way for us to work together and figure out a way to all contribute in a small way to a bigger picture (literally and metaphorically). So if we can figure out how to satisfy everyone’s needs in one mural, then we can figure out how to coordinate big campus events that satisfy all of our needs. But it starts with something small and fun… If we paint together and we do this one thing, this is us saying we’re real.” Greene reiterated, “This project is important because it has allowed the SDC to take the lead in revamping a space that will be for every student, and for the student organizations within SDC to gain some recognition on this campus.”

So Summers brought the idea back to SDC and to the CAC and received enthusiastic support. Antonia Ng ’18, chair of the CAC, defined the CAC’s role as connecting “the SDC to the broader student population through Student Assembly. Cultural Affairs Committee sent out the survey so that it would be obvious that Student Assembly is working in conjunction with the SDC to collect feedback on this project.” Summers confirmed, “SDC is spearheading it.” 

Niznik explained the process moving forward, specifying that “this project will likely take a year or a little longer to complete. I’d like to see what funds I have left over at the end of the academic year to put towards furniture and some other things (i.e. if students vote for an arcade, we’d begin pricing arcade games). I envision the space to be an interactive space welcoming to anyone. It can be reserved but also used any time if no one has reserved it. In an effort to support Sadove Programming, I want to avoid making it another study space or meeting room on campus. Not to say that it also can’t be that outside of peak hours, but I think first and foremost we want to figure out if it would be something more, like a game room, a collaborative art space, performance space, etc.” Niznik concluded by echoing the sentiment expressed by everyone involved: “I am really excited about the potential even though we are only in the beginning stages of this project.”

All News