In celebration of its opening earlier this month, the College of Literature, Science and the Arts building hosted the LSA Homewarming Party for LSA students Friday afternoon. The event, attended by about 1,200 students, featured Reggie the Campus Corgi, as well as free food and Michigan gear.
Some of the changes to the building included a new second floor with desks and conference rooms. The first floor has additional space for studying and student collaboration. LSA senior Cassidy Guros, sociology and women’s studies major, is in the LSA building often because it houses the Department of Sociology. Guros noted the differences between the building before and after it underwent renovations.
“(The change) is like night and day,” Guros said. “It makes me feel like I’m even more appreciated as a student because I have a space that’s dedicated to me and my studies.”
LSA Dean Anne Curzan, whose office has been in the LSA building throughout the renovation, also attended the event, taking the opportunity to speak to students in a more informal setting.
“We hope this space will be a home base for LSA students,” Curzan said in an interview with The Daily. “When you ask students ‘Where is LSA?’ they will often say it’s kind of everywhere, which is true. We also wanted students to feel like there was a center, there was a home base for them to go, so this space is designed to be a center for some key resources for students.”
One of these resources is the Opportunity Hub, which returned back to its original location on the first floor from the second floor following renovations.
Jessica St. George, information services coordinator at the Opportunity Hub, helped with the tabling and trivia game the Hub provided during the Homewarming Party.
“I think it’s going to make a huge impact on how we serve the community because we’re the central point in a public space now,” St. George said. “It’s going to be important for us to be very visible to students and also to learn more about what the students want and what they need as they come through and experience the new space.”
According to Curzan, the theme of the event “Homewarming” came from this idea that the LSA building would serve as a home for the college moving forward.
“We knew that we wanted the event to be fun and to feel really welcoming for all LSA students because we see this as the new home for LSA students,” Curzan said. “We want students to feel like this is a home base for them, so we designed this to have games and comfort food and to make this feel like a homewarming party.”
LSA freshman Regan Monnett attended the event to take advantage of some of these free giveaways. Monnett said she usually goes to the Shapiro Undergraduate Library to study, but after visiting the LSA building, that could change.
“I definitely want to come back here when I have stuff to do, as a study space,” Monnett said. “I like the modern feel of it.”
In addition to going there to study, Curzan said she hoped students would also utilize the LSA building for collaboration, meeting friends and hanging out.
“One of the messages that we want to send is that this is a college where we talk about really important issues and we challenge ourselves and we ask hard questions,” Curzan said. “We also celebrate the joy of doing this kind of work and the fact that we also play with ideas, so these themes of joy and play alongside rigor and challenge really matter to us.”