Collis should be like this all the time!" Boy, if I only had a dollar for every time I heard that this Saturday night/Sunday morning, I could probably finance the rest of my Dartmouth education. In all seriousness, Dartmouth students did love seeing their student center actually looking -- oh my goodness -- like a student center. Yes, for one terrific night now known campus-wide as Dartmouth Up All Night, Collis was not overrun with senior citizens' meetings and office workers. It was instead overrun with Dartmouth students having tons of fun. And it was fabulous.
I'm sure we all realize that the DUAN coordinators cannot possibly plan DUAN every single weekend. But that doesn't mean that Collis can only be the ultimate student hang-out once a year. There are several concerned students and administrators who want to see Collis drastically improved and they are constantly looking for suggestions on how to do this. Well, people have always said that actions speak louder than words, and I don't think that actions come any louder than DUAN. So, Collis Center Action Team, in case you didn't see how much fun we were all having, read on. Take a few hints from DUAN on how to make Collis what we all want to see it be.
To begin with, Collis should not be a building simply of meetings -- it shoud be a place of programming, of action and fun events. Schedule a capella groups, dance performances, movies and anything else students can come up with. Collis needs to more actively recruit student programming as well, to ensure that the building is always alive with student activity. I think it's safe to say that DUAN proved the "If you program, they will come" theory. Now, we just need to continue programming. Let on campus groups know that the Common Ground is not the only place they can program. DUAN made use of just about every room in Collis, and there's no reason this cannot be done on a more regular basis. And especially with the arrival of warm weather, we should really make use of Collis's porch as well -- what better way than by letting students eat pizza and dance under the stars until sunrise?
I've never claimed to be able to predict the future -- the Tarot Card reader at DUAN is the resident expert in that department -- but I have a feeling I know what will happen once we transform Collis into a great student center. It simply won't be enough room for all of the students. Once campus groups get excited about all of their programming options, they'll wind up battling over space in Collis. Once all of the Dartmouth students realize that Collis can be as cool as it was during DUAN all year round, the fire marshal will declare the building a fire hazard filled with 4,500 wild and crazy undergrads. And so, we'll need more student space.
I admit, this is hardly a new idea. Dartmouth students have been rallying for more student social space since the administration closed down the famed Webster Hall to make a new Special Collections library. (Gee, I'm sure that will draw huge crowds.) But that is a moot point now. We cannot look to the past, but only to the future. I think we would all like to see another place where students will hang out, program and have a great time. Several concerned students are working to gather student opinions on what they would like to see a new student social space include. Suggestions have included a large hall for programming, a restaurant where we can use our DBA, a bar ... the ideas are limitless. The College has enormous amounts of student enthusiasm for this project. Now, we only need one thing...
We need the support of the powers that be -- the administrators and Trustees. The only way we can get that is by convincing them that students want this, that students need this. Yes, we can leave the whole thing up to the Student Assembly and hope that new student social space is built before the class of 2020 graduates. Or, we can take matters into our own hands. For once, as we're asking the Student Assembly to help us, we can help them too. We can tell people that we want student space. Who knows, they just might listen. But we'll never know unless we try.
Hundreds, maybe even thousands of us went to DUAN this weekend. If that many of us work to improve Collis and then work to get even more student social space, then there's no telling how successful we could be.
