Gavner Student Activity Center Now Open

Gavner College proudly opened its new Student Activity Center (the "SAC") today with much fanfare. About 2,000 students and faculty were in attendance on the opening day of the SAC. President Matilda Gomez, fresh from her inauguration last week, made opening remarks before a large audience in attendance in the SAC ballroom. She thanked all those who made the SAC possible, including those who participated in the fund raising efforts over the last few years. She particularly thanked those students and faculty who served many long hours on the SAC steering committee. Without the input of both faculty and students, its obvious that the SAC would not be the enormous success we hope it will become.

Multicultural Library Unique to the SAC

One of the SAC's more unique features is the creation of a new multicultural library. While the main library will still serve as the repository for most of the texts on campus, the SAC's multicultural library will serve as the locus for all texts that are printed in languages other than English. There are large sections devoted to languages such as Spanish, French, German, and Italian. There is a large selection of texts printed in Arabic and Chinese as well. A substantial percentage of Gavner's student body are here from other countries, so the creation of the multicultural library will be an exciting enhancement for many of the students and faculty on campus. The advent of the multicultural library will add to the campus prestige as an international center and serve to attract even more students from around the globe.

New Campus Club Central

The lower level of the new SAC is home to more than two dozen meeting rooms where clubs can meet on any day or night of the week. Pictured at right, for example, is the first meeting of the History Club, which plans to take several field trips to Minneapolis and St. Paul this semester. One of the benefits of having ample space for club activities is the interaction that naturally occurs when club members are in close proximity to each other. Members of one club can learn about the existence of and therefore join other clubs. Prior to the creation of "Club Central,' as this section of the lower level is called, clubs met in various buildings on campus. Now, all club activities are housed in one central and modern location.

Computers Everywhere

One comment that many students have made is that there are computers available for student use seemingly everywhere throughout the building. It's no accident that the building is so computer accessible. The designers of the SAC wanted to make the entire building a place where students could access the Internet and conduct research, rather than house students in small or large open computer labs. As such, students can log on to a computer throughout the building without the hassle of having to enter a strictly controlled student computer lab that has rigid hours. Computers are available to students who go into the SAC 24x7. There's no need to ask if the computer labs are open because there are so many computers throughout the building available for student use.