During two recent meetings to discuss the renovations of the Center for Intercultural Understanding, many members of cultural organizations and CIU interim director Lisa Martin expressed their unhappiness with the architects’ plans.

Henry Munoz, chief executive officer of Kell Munoz Architects, Inc., revealed during the April 7 meeting that the CIU office, located at the front of the Danna Center across from the Orleans Room, will not keep its glass walls. Instead, the office will be replaced with regular walls with “pocket doors,” door-shaped openings that would keep the room open at all times. He also said Martin’s office may have to be moved to open up the center. Her new office would be placed upstairs.

Six television monitors would hang on the wall facing the Peace Quad, screening anything from photo slideshows to Web site pages to filmed events. Inside, one wall of the office will be “tackable,” where papers and pictures could be pinned up.

Munoz said these plans are flexible.

Marcia “Cissy” Petty, vice president for student affairs and associate provost, notified various student cultural organization leaders, the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, and Martin of the meeting at 5 p.m. on April 6. Many members were unable to attend, but those who did expressed concern.

Many people were afraid the office would turn into a meeting space instead of a discussion area. They also said they didn’t understand the purpose of the TV screens, and they wanted Martin to be in the office.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Martin said during the meeting. “The way the center works, works … I feel like (these new plans) rewrite my job description.”

Earlier in the year, when Kell Munoz Architects wanted to know what campus cultural organizations were looking for in a CIU, phrases such as “gathering,” “more open,” “access to all” and “more welcoming” came up.

“(These plans) are a compromise between the people that do use it and the people that are yearning to use it,” said political science junior Cade Cypriano, Student Government Association president for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Other phrases that came up during the brainstorming meeting were “not fishbowl” and “private place.” Others said that moving Martin’s office upstairs would complement the private counseling aspect of the CIU.

Martin is a mass communication professor, but gives the majority of her time to the center. She expressed regret that the SGA contingent at the meeting greatly outnumbered the number of people who would be involved with the CIU.

“The information didn’t get out in a timely way to the students who the CIU serves,” she said.

Petty posted fliers revealing the date and time of the meeting in the Danna Center the morning before the meeting. Only two CIU work-study students were able to attend. Many members of the Muslim Student Association stopped in at the meeting briefly.

After the meeting, many people lingered to express their doubts and fears about the plans. Munoz made it clear that he will take everyone’s comments into consideration when he and the architects revise the plans.

“Architecture is like this,” he said. “People get engaged, change is difficult … Out of this conversation we’ll get to something that people want.”

“(Munoz) is a really good-hearted man,” Martin said. “He wants to do this right … the glitz and glamour should provide the same purpose. I don’t believe in making the center high-tech and glitzy just for the sake of being high-tech and glitzy.”

Petty said she’s glad Munoz is taking the students’ ideas into consideration.

“It is gratifying to see Mr. Munoz incorporating so much of what students say is important to them in this significant space,” she said in an e-mail to The Maroon.

Petty said that no definite office space plans have been made as a result of the meetings.

“Yesterday was another good conversation, an additional information gathering time, and of course Ms. Martin is central to that conversation. No immediate decision has been made on office space, and it was clear to all of us how important her presence is to the Center,” Petty said.

Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at [email protected]. Jessica Williams can be reached at [email protected].