A centre for student life

By Lyndi-Colleen Morgan

Hundreds of students were in attendance of the opening of St. Clair College’s new Student Life Centre and concert this past Friday night.

The John A. Strasser Student Life Centre at St. Clair College’s South Campus welcomed students for the first time  Feb. 24 with a concert featuring the Arkells and Modern Space.

The student centre is named after John A. Strasser the former president of St. Clair College, who retired in 2015. He was the school’s president for 15 years.

“The Student Life Centre has been in the works for about two years now,” said Jeff Rousseau, president of St. Clair’s Student Representative Council. “The conceptual drawings started sometime in late 2015, and then we broke ground in 2016.”

Key performance indicator surveys and student comment sheets showed interest in a new gathering space for students. Members of the SRC were also aware of the need for more gathering space.

“If you go to the current area where students hangout you can see a lack of seated area, which was the big concern. There is not a lot of area for students to mingle with each other, to sit down – to have that student life that we expect them to have outside the classroom,” said Rousseau.

He also said there was no common space for the SRC to host events while still providing or including a place for students to relax and study.

The project was funded by St. Clair College administration, the community and a donation from the Anthony P. Toldo foundation. The majority of the funding, however, came from the SRC.

It was originally estimated the project would cost around $3.5 million, but Rousseau said by the end of the project it will have cost approximately $4 million.

The centre encompasses 12,000 square feet with tiered seating, a vendor’s station and a “state of the art” stage.

“The new Student Life Centre has several electronic advancements built in,” said Logan Poels, vice president of student life on the SRC. “There is wireless lighting… which won’t require a large team to run events during the day. As well, the Student Life Centre is equipped with outlets and plugs absolutely everywhere you can possibly look, so every student will have access to charge their laptops and phones.”

He said the building of the centre addressed the problems of some of the existing spaces at St. Clair, and the issues faced with holding events in a space that was not always compatible.

Sheldon Siddique is a student in the liberal arts program at the South Campus and one of many students who are excited to see what this space will offer.

“It provides a new environment to work in, to associate with people,” said Siddique. “It’s a really good addition. That’s one aspect the campus was originally missing, a large area where people could gather around to do more. We had the cafeteria and the stage area, but there needed to be more space.”  

Poels said students attending the downtown campuses can expect to see some change as well.

In addition to new banners hanging in the downtown core to represent the St. Clair College campuses, the SRC is looking at updating computer labs and lounge areas at St. Clair’s Centre for the Arts and the TD Student Centre.

The SRC representatives look for student input throughout the academic year to improve St. Clair College campuses, urging students with ideas to approach any of the council’s representatives or class reps.

“The majority of the projects that we come up with are driven from student input,” said Rousseau. “We don’t just come up with stuff for the sake of coming up with stuff. We believe that these projects are going to make SRC better for the students, because we represent the students.”

More than 500 showed up to hear the two bands. Tickets had been for sale several weeks in advance at around $20 each. Students danced and sang in the brand new space for almost four hours.

Students now have access to the new facility, with some work still needing to be done moving forward, including the installation of several large furniture items during the March Break.

Rousseau said a tentative date of March 31 has been set for the ribbon cutting ceremony at St. Clair College’s South Campus, with John Strasser to be in attendance.

“We are still playing around with the dates because with such a monumental building opening we want many of our guests to be there…most importantly our students because they are the reason why we are building,” said Rousseau.