When trying to determine a place that embodies Columbia, the possibilities don’t number very many. Not only the essence of the college as a place for people of all interests, but also as our urban campus set in the middle of downtown Chicago made it difficult to find a central place that is Columbia. The place I was finally able to decide on was the Office of Student Engagement (and no, this time I didn’t choose it just because it’s convenient to me). I feel like the office is truly what Columbia prides itself on; being open, inviting, and supportive of everyone who is looking to turn their dreams into careers in the arts.
Located on the 4th Floor of the newly renovated 926 S. Wabash Building, the Office of Student Engagement, or as it’s affectionately called, the Loft, is the home base of all the student clubs on campus. You and nine of your like minded friends can start a club for just about anything. Columbia already has more then 60 active student organizations. The major clubs include Latino Alliance, EPIC, and Common Ground. Clubs work on issues from recycling to L.G.B.T. rights; basically put, walking the aisles of small desks and computer stations one can see the wide variety of clubs that are here at Columbia.The school never lets you forget about the Columbia belief of individualism as key and
discrimination as evil. While the second tenant in that sentence is pretty much universal, not many schools are like Columbia in the respect, and even the promotion, of truly being you. Waking down Wabash or Michigan Ave you get to see the Columbia student body as we walk to class, work, or home, but in places like the Office of Student Engagement, one can truly see what the Columbia student is all about.
The Loft gives these clubs a home, a place from which to branch out and do what their club has set out to do, whether advance Civil Rights for Gays and Lesbians or celebrating the beauty of Japanese Animation. The college has worked hard to create a space where students can come, work, hold meetings and events, or just hang out and talk with their friends. Filled with couches, chairs, pillows, and a newly installed big screen TV, the Loft just want’s you to come hang out in it’s comfy confines.As I walked around taking pictures, EPIC (the recycling people) were occupying the small meeting room making buttons for their new recycling education campaign. Later on in the day the Student Government association took over the large meeting area to discuss upcoming Senate Elections. While observing the space a near constant flow of students came into the Loft. They were there both to work on official club business but also just enjoy the space in between classes.
On the streets we see what a Columbia student looks like, but if we’re truly going after the Columbia “spirit” we can’t judge that student by what jeans they’re wearing or what they decide to pierce their body with. Instead we have to see that student in action; doing what they came here to Columbia to do, and more importantly what they do outside of the classroom environment when they are the ones making the decisions. With a student club, it is truly run by the students. While final monetary approval comes from faculty advisers, the clubs decide their own schedules, plan their own meetings and events, and even design their own logos, posters, and merchandise
Not many schools would allow for a club like NORML to advocate for revisions in our national drug enforcement laws. Columbia creates an atmosphere not often found on college campuses. While hearing about how awesome and accepting we all are of everyone can become tiring, the truth of the matter is, at Columbia there is a place for everyone. And not to sound to cliche (or like this is a poorly written ad for how awesome the office is) the Office of Student Engagement is the physical representation of that vague and lofty ideal of acceptance of all. And if Columbia truly does offer a place for everyone, then this office is a pretty good place to start your search to find that place.
What I really dig here--besides the connections you draw between the physical space and the mood or attitude that the space helps create, nicely done!--it the way you are at once deeply skeptical of the kumbayah cliches that can abound in situations like this, but you let yourself admit that, well, maybe sometimes the cliches are true. Maybe having unlike groups get along and coexist and be tolerant, as sappy as it sounds, can also be a good thing. That's a sophisticated move to make, rhetorically, and it's what keeps this piece from coming off too boosterish.
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