Operational for just over a month, the new Student Community Center (SCC) is boasting strong student usage of the center’s numerous services and study areas.
Centrally located on the corner of Hutchison Drive and California Avenue, the SCC offers students a wide variety of community shaping facilities, programs and quiet places to study. Extra student fees for funding the creation of the SCC were approved by ASUCD in 1999.
“Since the first day we opened, students seemed to settle right in,” said Events Coordinator for the SCC and the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) Rebecca Miller. “From what I’ve observed, everyone coming in seems to really love the space.”
The first floor of the complex includes the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center (LGBTRC), the Cross Cultural Center (CCC), the Student Recruitment and Retention Center (SRRC) and a satellite office to the Women’s Resources and Research Center (WRRC). The ground floor also includes a lounge, café, reflection room and an extended study space that works much like the 24 hour-room in Shields Library.
Director of the Cross Cultural Center (CCC) Steven Baissa emphasized the importance of having the CCC located at the SCC.
“The center, as we like to call it, is really a home away from home; meaning for all students,” Baissa said. “We are primarily a retention program for students who come from marginalized, unrepresented, and under served communities. We have students who feel isolated; we try to connect those students who really feel unrepresented.”
Baissa cited a hunger strike by four UC Davis students in 1990 stemming from numerous racist and sexist actions that were taking place on campus, as the origin of the CCC. A temporary cottage was erected in 1992 as a short-term location for the center, yet not until the opening of the new SCC did the CCC have a permanent address.
“We feel like the vision that was created back in 1990 has finally come to fruition”, Baissa said .
The second floor of the building contains the Undergraduate Resource Center (URC), five media rooms, a large multipurpose room, two outdoor terraces and an IET computer lab.
“The whole building is very spacious and quiet, the computer room isn’t as crowded as the library’s,” said first-year biological science major Estefania Mendoza.
Student staff member Allison Keneis said the overall student reaction to the new center has been positive.
“They really like that they can rent out the meeting rooms for two hours at a time for studying and the computer lab gets used a lot,” she said.
Baissa attributed the success of the SCC to the fact that all of these centers are now located in the same space.
“It’s fantastic to have all the centers in the same building,” Baissa said. “It’s really bringing in a lot of traffic.”
MAX GARRITY RUSSER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
