Duncan Hood / McGill Tribune

Last Friday, approximately 20 students gathered in the Shatner Breakout Room to discuss the future of student space on campus. The summit aimed to determine the meaning of student space and to brainstorm ways for students and staff to improve the quality of under-used space on campus. 

“[T]he goal is to create informal, productive conversations about what students would like to see at SSMU and on campus. This recognizes that the formalized processes (committees, Council, Senate, etc.) are not always accessible or interesting to most students,” Maggie Knight, SSMU President, wrote in an email to the Tribune. 

One point of discussion raised by many students was the lack of space on campus, whether for academic or extracurricular purposes. Paul Guenther, a physical planner with McGill’s Campus Space Planning, responded by pointing out the different types of student spaces.  

“There are formal student spaces, but there are also a lot of informal student spaces,” Guenther said. “Most of your interactions with other students probably happen in these [informal] spaces—lower campus, for example, is the largest of these spaces.”

Formal spaces, however, became the target of student concern. Josh Redel, President of the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS), spoke about his experience with the newly renovated basement in McConnell Engineering Building. 

“The hardest thing we found … is that as we decrease work space and increase informal student space, we lose storage space,” Redel said.  

Katie Larson, President of the Music Undergraduate Students’ Association (MUSA), explained the chronic lack of space that music students experience. 

“The amount of space we occupy is pretty ridiculous … [yet] everything in our building is booked from nine to five every day. It is nearly impossible to get in there [even] if you are a music student,” she said. 

Larson added that the the needs of various campus a cappella groups make the chronic shortage even more pressing.

Carol Fraser, Vice President Clubs and Services of SSMU, explained that the perceived lack of space is frequently cited by students as a major problem on campus. In the recent SSMU survey pertaining to space on campus, the highest ranked response was for increased space for clubs. 

“The importance of multi-use space is something that people have been trying to preserve in the [SSMU] building, such as [the Breakout Room],” Fraser said. 

Another topic of discussion was an initiative by the McGill administration called “Campus Greening,” a project that aims to improve the general conditions on campus. 

Over the last few years, a number of projects have reached fruition on campus: the McTavish Street pedestrian zone, the University Street bike path, the no-car policy on campus, and the various building terraces, and James Square renovations. 

Guenther explained that these projects are only some of many in the works.  

“We try to make sure that whatever actions are happening meet the needs of the university in the long-term vision,” he said. “One thing that is very challenging is that a lot of students do not get to see the changes. By the time [students] are finished [their degrees], the projects might not be finished yet.”

While taking into account all differing perspectives on how to improve the use of space on campus has been difficult, executives are striving to move forward. 

“We have a lot of things going on at once,” Fraser said. 

“Several students expressed how happy they were [about being]able to hear directly what is happening with space in libraries and on McTavish St.,” Knight wrote. “The discussions were very productive and [participants] came up with some great ideas that we’re going to follow up on.”