The solar eclipse was more than just an opportunity to witness the sun and the moon interact; it was also a glimpse of what the Vassar community should be like all the time. On April 8, the eclipse tracked across the sky and students gathered in droves across campus to witness it. We came together as a community in a way that is not common for the Vassar student body. Since the pandemic, social interactions on Vassar campus have been limited—first as a form of protection from COVID-19 and now because the expectation of social planning primarily falls on the student body.
Social centers at Vassar are small and limited to the dorms and affinity spaces, so community at Vassar can be restricted to where you live and how you identify. That can be fine; get in where you fit in, so to speak. I love the Vets Lounge. It is my home away from home at Vassar. There are study spaces, a couple of computers and a decently comfortable couch. It is a great social place for student veterans. It is, however, a closed space. I am not mad about that; I am 31 years old. Sometimes it is nice to have a place that feels more age-appropriate, but I wish that it was not the only social space that felt easily accessible on campus to me. And I am sure that I have non-student-veteran peers that wish they had similar social spaces to the Vets Lounge.
I do not live on campus so I rarely visit the dorms, and I am not on the meal plan so I am not in the Deece. Most of my friends I see are in my classes or walking across campus. Maybe I should have been more social throughout my time at Vassar and my perspective is an outlier to the general campus opinion, but also, maybe my outlier experience just made me more keenly aware of the limitations that Vassar’s social spaces possess. It is possible that the solar eclipse was a vision of Vassar’s past, one from before the pandemic. Maybe Vassar was a more social, community-oriented campus pre-pandemic. If it was, I hope that returns.
Where is Vassar’s student center? Is it Main Building? A residential building that happens to hold campus activities, some tables and chairs, and lots of offices? The Vets Lounge is in the basement of Main. The LGBTQ Center and the Women’s Center are on the second floor. The ground floor has tables and chairs designed for students stopping for a bite to eat or meeting with a study group. The only purely social space in the building is The Mug, a space that is not even open 24/7, and the parlors, on the second floor.
This spring, Vassar is breaking ground on a new admissions building. I am sure that Vassar already has plans for every office space that will be moving to the new building, but I wonder if any of those spaces will be available for the social improvement of the student body. Could centralizing affinity spaces to the same building allow students to move more freely between them? Or would encouraging campus orgs to submit their meeting schedules to the campus activities calendar make access to an org more accessible throughout the year?
A student center is the heartbeat of most college campuses. It allows for the centralization of student services and provides easily accessible social spaces for students, faculty and even alumni to engage within. Students should be able to intermingle with each other regardless of their major or their dorm assignment. Campus activities does a lot for this campus in terms of social events, as does the VSA and student organizations, but we could be doing more. Events do not need to be strictly academic to have value and many of the academic events thrive because of the social components they include.
I am about to graduate. This is my last spring at Vassar, but I will always want Vassar to improve itself for the sake of my peers and my community. Vassar needs a centralized student center because that is what its students deserve. In the post-COVID life, it is time for Vassar to be a community again, one that is accessible to all of its members.
You make many good points but don’t overlook the social possibilities of the new Computer Science building on Noyes Circle.
As an alum, I suggest Vassar build a new pool. What were they thinking by building a pool with one window? You should see the pools at other colleges.
Has Vassar ever considered operating a retirement community for Vassar graduates? The way alums write about their connection to the school, and hearing direct stories from older graduates, I’ve wondered if these folks would appreciate a closer, literally, connection to Vassar.
As an antique alumna I’d be interested to know what the writer would like to see in a dedicated Student Center. Would it be a lounge? A large lounge? A lounge with ‘refreshment’ service? A place with tables, chairs, leather sofas and performance space? A bank of computers? A computer service center? Display space for student art? Maybe a spot where a meeting could take place? How many people would you accommodate? I guess it’s a vision thing and it would be nice to see what a Student Center vision might include.