As Loyola prepares to witness the most dramatic renovation to the Danna Center in the building’s history, the future location of the Center for Intercultural Understanding within the building is a concern to student leaders.
About 20 students representing the Student Government Association, Black Student Union, Loyola Asian Students’ Organization, Muslim Students’ Association and other organizations gathered in the SGA office Oct. 12 to unify their opposition to moving the CIU to the basement of the Danna Center, which is part of the planned Danna Center renovation.
By the beginning of the presentation by Henry Munoz, an architect with the Kell Munoz firm and lead designer of the Danna Center plan, the student gathering had doubled in size.
“We like the area that the CIU is in right now. We like that it’s in a high-traffic area and a lot of people see it,” said Jasmine Bailey, marketing junior. “But if all of us were to go down right now, we all wouldn’t be able to fit in the office. Is it possible for the CIU to be expanded in the renovations?” Bailey asked.
“We hope it expands. The question is how it expands,” Munoz replied.
“The thing about it is that it’s too small to deal with the issues it deals with. It’s good real estate, it’s just too small,” Munoz added.
During the meeting, Munoz proposed moving the bookstore out of its current location and possibly using that space for the CIU, which met with some student approval. Munoz said he and his team will go back and look at the placement of the bookstore as a possible future location of the CIU; however, he cited budgetary constraints as a possible hurdle.
“The issue becomes (that) maybe this space is so important that it shouldn’t be an office. Yes, we firmly believe the Center for Intercultural Understanding ought to expand, we believe that the first statement that you arrive at when you walk into the building should be about intercultural understanding, but we’re going to look at strategies with how to deal with that within the budget we have,” Munoz said.
LeeAnn Moss, student affairs committee chairwoman for SGA, said that talk of moving the CIU to the basement spread by word-of-mouth among student leaders who participated in the planning meetings for the Danna Center renovation. Moss said that originally the idea was to move all student-centered organizations from the basement to the second floor where they would be more visible.
“At the beginning of this school year, plans changed, and the new idea communicated to the student body was that all of the student organizational offices would remain in the new-and-improved basement,” Moss said. “In order for there to be an information center in the front of the Danna Center on the first floor, the Center for Intercultural Understanding would (have to) move down to the basement because the office is a great meeting space for students and the (CIU) office could do more programming with more space,” Moss added.
Munoz said he didn’t know exactly how an information center would work, he just knew that a building like the Danna Center needed one if it was going to be a productive campus and cultural life center.
Munoz stressed that the renovation is meant to be a temporary fix until a permanent solution can be funded in the way of a new student center, which is still years away.
Jordan Hultine can be reached at [email protected].
