Students now have a place to hold club meetings, play board games, shoot pool or shoot the breeze at Ivy Tech Community College’s Valparaiso campus.
The new student center opened Monday afternoon.
“Today is truly a historic day for us at the Valparaiso campus,” Chancellor Aco Sikoski said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The space the student center now occupies was once the campus bookstore. With the college using online textbooks, the bookstore was no longer needed.
“Twenty years ago, we needed the space, but at the same time we wanted to create a space where students felt they belong on campus,” Sikoski said.
“This space did not just happen overnight,” he said. “It took a lot of time, many meetings,” to bring it to fruition.
Director of Student Life April Gabbert-Strang is excited about the new space. It’s way more than she ever expected, she said.
“Just like everything else in this college, we listen to the students and see what you want,” Gabbert-Strang said.
Students were urged to complete surveys to guide the committee planning the design of the new space. If you had a designated spot where you could just decompress, what would you want in that space? “We hope that we answered your call,” she said.
The student center features comfortable leather furniture – easier to clean up spills – arranged in groupings so students could chat with each other, perhaps study together, perhaps even just take a nap.
There’s a campus care closet, so students with food insecurity or who maybe just forgot to bring a lunch that day can discreetly get something to eat. Hygiene products are included, too, for deodorant, feminine needs and other concerns.
Gabbert-Strang said the campus had a shelf for those products previously, but now there’s a full closet for them.
Lower lighting gives the space a more homey feel, something the students requested.
“Students sit in classrooms all the time. They don’t want to meet in classrooms more,” Gabbert-Strang said.
Student Government Association President Dominic Yanke said clubs needed a better space for meetings. The student center has a conference table and chairs for clubs. The two-story lobby has the wrong acoustics, which sounds bouncing around the large space.
“So before we had this space, a lot of times if I had stuff to do on campus, we would meet in different rooms,” he said. Not all rooms had Zoom capabilities for hybrid meetings, which also limited options.
There are 19 clubs this year, but Yanke hopes there will be 30 next year.
Incoming SGA President Rose Durkin said the SGA is focused on boosting student engagement. “We offer hybrid meetings for all our student meetings if possible.”
Secretary Kristen Danielson said the SGA is “definitely advocating for the students, letting their voices be heard.”
The student organizations on campus help inspire other leaders and get students to be more confident while developing advocacy skills, Yanke said.
Getting students together helps them study, Durkin said. “We know the need for intense thinking and processing in some intense subjects.”
Like video games, courses get harder until you finally hit the boss level, the hardest course. “They are so intense. Studying is the key factor,” she said.
“This will be perfect for that,” she said of the new space.
“This is so much more warm and comforting,” Yanke said.
Gabbert-Strang said the effort to design the new space began in late summer. She credited Sikoski with providing a reasonable budget for the space and committing to purchasing nice furniture. “We want our students to feel valued. We don’t want to give you just ‘we found it on the side of the road’ sofas,” she said.
A countertop is being redone to include an Ivy Tech logo.
Minutes after Monday’s ribbon-cutting, she watched the student center being used for the first time. “We’ve got a couple that are playing pool, we’ve had a couple checking out the games section,” Gabbert-Strang observed.
Alex Hebda, of Wheatfield, and Chris Mercaldo, of Valparaiso, were knocking the balls around the pool table. “It’s nice to have a place to gather,” Hebda said. “It’s a nice environment.”
That’s what Gabbert-Strang likes to see. When she was a student at Purdue Calumet, she said, there was nowhere for students to just hang out. She would sometimes rest in her car in the Purdue Cal parking lot. “It was the only place to be without somebody bothering you.”
The student center gives Ivy Tech’s Valpo campus that necessary space. “It’s a commuter campus. The students that we have don’t just wander back to their dorms,” Gabbert-Strang said.
“This is their time. It’s not about their kids; it’s not about their husband, she said. “Sometimes you just want to be left alone. If you want to be left alone, go ahead.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
