Administration Reveals Potential Pub Re-Design
The proposed floor plan for a re-configured Siegel Center. Image Credit: Davis Brody Bond
“The Pub is a special building to Sarah Lawrence. It’s unique,” noted Vice President for Finance and Operations Steve Schafer during the Nov. 21 meeting intended to discuss possible uses for the Siegel Center, also known as the Pub, following the opening of the Barbara Walters Campus Center.
Stephen Schafer, Vice President for Finance and Operations revealed a tentative plan designed by New York architecture firm Davis Brody Bond. According to this potential design, the space formerly occupied by AVI’s grab-and-go food option would become a social seating area, which would include a Kosher kitchen facility available to all students. Behind the former eatery, where AVI’s kitchen facilities used to be, would be renovated and become a new home for Common Ground.
The adjacent seating area would be converted into offices for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The North Room would become the LGBTQIA+ space, and the Newsroom, accessible via stairs around the back of the building, would become the new Spiritual Space. Administrators are aware of the Newsroom’s accessibility issues, and said that public events will be held in the Pub’s main area. The storage area attached to the back loading dock of the building, which faces Mead Way, will become the new Food Sharing Space.
The next meeting regarding new uses for the Pub is December 6th. All community members are encouraged to attend.
“Right now we're in a conceptual phase looking for feedback about the functions and use of this space,” said Schafer. “We're really focused on the sharing of this space and the idea of the synergies that can be created by having these group spaces at the center of campus.”
The switch will only benefit most identity groups, said Ronnie Benion, Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, who stressed that “every identity space would be gaining in square footage.”
Schafer explained that this move aims to shift the focus of student activities and clubs to the center of campus.
Locating them close together would make the area surrounding Glen Washington Road “very central to everything that happens, and starts to create an energy, or a density of student functions and student activities,” said Schafer. Likewise, the possibility of moving faculty offices and classrooms to the vacated spaces in the Bates building “further reinforces that area of campus as an academic space.”
Schafer also confirmed that the administration would eventually like to move WSLC’s broadcasting room and the A*SPACE gallery from Bates to somewhere more centrally located eventually, but has no current plans to do so.
“We'd like to get the campus engaged in this process and it'd be really great to hear from students,” said Amada Sandoval, Associate Dean of Engagement, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Under the new plan, Sandoval’s office, currently in Bates, would move to the Pub. “This is something that a lot of people have worked to make happen.”
The next meeting regarding new uses for the Pub will be held on December 6th, at 1pm in PAC 1. All community members are encouraged to attend.
Steve Orlofsky, ‘22