Student Social Spaces

Slonim House

As well as housing classrooms, the Graduate Studies offices, a copy machine, and a payphone, Slonim House has a living room and kitchen that serve as comfortable social gathering places for graduate students and faculty. In both the kitchen and lobby, bulletin boards are frequently used to post messages between administration and students, and students have their own posting boards in the upstairs kitchen. Students gather in the large Slonim House living room to study, attend poetry readings, hold meetings for student-run organizations, have celebrations, attend informal presentations, lounge on the couches to read, or sit at the tables to do homework. The living room is available to students during regular Slonim House hours.

The Ruth Leff Siegel Center

This informal social center of the campus is open seven days a week, serving short-order food and refreshments. The Center has a terrace for outdoor activities, a viewing room with a large-screen TV, a pool table, and an additional wing with multipurpose space for meetings, discussions, readings, and performances. The center opened in the winter of 1998 after having been expanded to twice its original size.

Bates Center for Student Life

Bates, which is one of the largest buildings on campus and currently houses both the student dining room and the post office, has been transformed to include a Center for Student Life. Bates includes office space for student clubs, the Student Senate, student publications offices, a performance room for student programming, a party space, and "The Black Squirrel," a social space for students that includes a large-screen television, late-night snacks, ping-pong, pool, darts, and hang-out space. It also includes many of the offices most used by students: the Office of Student Affairs, Career Counseling, Community Partnerships, and Common Ground.