At the Norris University Center dedication ceremony Jan.19, 1973, then-freshman Ruth Ann Marshall spoke on behalf of the student body about what the center meant for the Northwestern community.
“Norris is more than just a steel and concrete building,” she said. “It is a catalyst drawing us together.”
Now, almost four decades later, 15 years of surveys and studies have called into question whether Norris can adequately accommodate NU students, faculty and staff.
Dean of Students Burgwell Howard said the Center “does a pretty good job for what it is,” but the age of the building limits its ability to meet the needs of the NU community.
“It is an old building, and we are squeezing every bit of energy we can out of it,” Howard said. “Campus centers are dynamic places in many senses of the word. It should be physical magnet point on the campus that meets the essential needs for students.”
More than 7,000 people pass through the doors of Norris on an average weekday, meaning it probably sees more people per day than any other building on campus, Norris Executive Director Rick Thomas wrote in an e-mail.
While Norris provides a unifying space for the NU community, Thomas said its location and architecture are limiting.
“The Norris Center is challenged by its location-it isn’t at a crossroads of the campus,” he wrote. “Students have also told us that the building’s style and structure isn’t as warm and comfortable as they would like.”
According to the recently released Associated Student Government New Student Center Initiative proposal, Norris does not provide sufficient venue and meeting space for a campus of NU’s size or enough common spaces where students can meet to socialize or collaborate on projects.
Student centers at other institutions provide amenities such as a centralized location for student services, a post office, a bank and a grocery store in addition to food court dining options. Entertainment options, such as movie theatres and bowling alleys, are also often included in student centers.
Howard, who has managed student centers on other campuses, said whenever he visits a town with a college or university, the university center is the one place he always visits if he wants to gain a “sense of the vitality of the campus.”
He said it is hard for him to assess what message Norris sends to NU visitors.
“It seems vital but a little formal compared to some student centers I have visited,” Howard said. “The renovations downstairs added a modern feel, but it still feels dark and heavy. It is less inviting than it could be. The students and staff (who work in Norris) are awesome, but architecture doesn’t reflect that.”
The New Student Center Initiative proposal summarized much of the long-running conversation about NU’s student center needs and offered four possible options to improve the student center situation.
“Since 1995, we have identified unmet student needs regarding increased venue and meeting spaces, centralized student services and general entertainment options,” the preface to the proposal reads. “Moreover, Northwestern has long been concerned with the growing fragmentation of its diverse student body. Northwestern has been known to lack a particularly unifying culture.”
ASG President Mike McGee said the students who worked on the initiative this year decided to approach the issue of a new student center from the perspective of a “needs assessment.”
“We decided to shift the conversation from ‘Norris is ugly’ to focus on unmet student needs,” the Communication senior said. “Everyone can agree that Norris is not the best, but where we have failed in the past is that we didn’t approach this as a needs assessment.”
Looking Back
A similar conversation unfolded on campus before Norris was constructed. From 1938 until the center opened in 1972, Scott Hall served as the NU student center. In the mid-1960s, the facility was “deemed insufficient” for meeting the needs of modern students, according to documents in the University Archives.
A 1969 brochure, “The Case for the University Center,” informed potential alumni donors NU was “alone among major universities in not having a student union” and identified a student union as “a place for enlarging the interests of educated young people, for encouraging social life and for the pursuit of meaningful leisure activities.”
Other locations originally considered for Norris included a building across Sheridan Road from Deering Library, the vicinity of the Donald P. Jacobs Center and the area north of the Lagoon. According to a memorandum in the University Archives, administrators chose the current location because it would put the facility at “the center of things as the Lakefill campus develops.” The proximity of the center to the library would make it a “real convenience for students … and the view across the lake made this location the best aesthetically.”
Shortly after Norris opened in September 1972, a pamphlet produced by the daily described the facility as an “unusual architectural answer to the diverse needs of students, faculty, alumni and guests at NU.” The final construction costs were $8.8 million, which would be about $45,618,315.79 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.
Comparing Centers
The ASG New Student Center Initiative proposal identifies the student centers of Washington University in St. Louis, Princeton University, Dartmouth College and Stanford University as model facilities NU should try to emulate as it considers renovating Norris or building a new student center.
At Dartmouth, the Collis Center for Student Involvement is located on the corner of one of the main intersections on campus, Center Director Eric Ramsey said. He described it as the “cornerstone” of student life because of its location. Collis is one of the first places prospective students visit on admissions tours and one of the last places they visit as seniors for an event called Graduation Gala, he said.
Ramsey added the center was most recently renovated and expanded in 1994. The building houses Dartmouth’s student activities office, offices for student organizations, dining facilities, a ballroom, a “high-end” coffee shop, a nightclub room, a pool hall and meeting spaces, among other features.
“I think an effective and compelling student center is so necessary to make students feel at home on their campus,” Ramsey said. “It is so important that the first place students walk into on their tour is a building that is really designed and built for them … Collis is critical to students’ experience of Dartmouth. It is a place where as students walk in, they should feel immense pride and ownership.”
At Washington University in St. Louis, the recently opened Danforth University Center serves as a crossroads for the otherwise “decentralized” campus, Center Director Leslie Heusted said.
“We have a north side and a south side of campus, and (the Danforth Center sits) between the two. So even though it is not technically in the middle of campus, it is a crossroads for those two communities,” Heusted said. “It has served as a physical bridge to more of that central experience of Washington University.”
Danforth opened in August 2008 and includes numerous dining options, office space, the campus career center, a graduate student center, meeting and presentation rooms, a “formal lounge,” a “fun room,” a visitors’ center, multiple common spaces, event spaces and a 522-car parking garage.
Planning Ahead
ASG Vice President Tommy Smithburg has managed the New Student Center Initiative Web site. So far, the Weinberg senior said 10 percent of students have officially endorsed the proposal and “strongly support” it.
But Smithburg said some students are skeptical regarding the costs of the proposal’s four different options, which range from $45 million for an extensive renovation of No
rris to almost $95 million to construct a new facility near Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary on Sheridan Road.
“I think everyone has acknowledged that the need is there,” Smithburg said. “It isn’t about challenging the need; it is more about talking through whether it is the best way to spend the money.”
Smithburg said students who question whether a new center is worth the financial cost should visit or research the facilities other universities offer.
“When you realize what we don’t have that other schools do have, then that is the point where you can realize that maybe it is worth that money,” he said.
Smithburg and McGee both said they do not know when NU administrators will officially decide what to do with their proposal. Smithburg said he and the other students working on the proposal have been pleased with its reception on campus so far.
“We have been definitely taken to the next level with this proposal and gathering the student support,” he said. “We can tell President Schapiro and the Board of Trustees that we have ears that are listening and are willing to talk to us.”
University President Morton O. Schapiro said while the student center issue needs to be considered, he is focusing on finding ways to create new student-friendly spaces and build community on campus in the short term.
“I like 25- and 50-year plans, but the students are only here for four, so I think you can’t lose sight of the ongoing needs that students have,” Schapiro said. “The long-term future is important, but I don’t have a lot of patience for things. I am more worried about what we are going to do to improve the situation for the students six months from now.”
Schapiro said in the short term, NU will likely take steps to make Norris a “more attractive” campus destination for students.
Recent Norris improvements have included renovation of the first floor and the addition of a Starbucks in 2007 and the renovation of the ground floor dining area and the addition of a Jamba Juice last summer, according to The Daily archives.
Thomas wrote the Starbucks addition increased building traffic in Norris by more than 2,000 people per day.
Such improvements make the building a destination for students and other members of the community, which is important because Norris’s location means people aren’t likely to stop by on their way to another place, Thomas wrote. He added a consultant once told him
Norris’s location is both the facility’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness.
“We have beautiful views of Lake Michigan and wonderful outdoor spaces,” he wrote. “Our location is a weakness because we are not located on a major pedestrian pathway.”
Schapiro said he also hopes to add new “third spaces”-locations on campus that aren’t classrooms or dorms where students can meet-to campus in the next few years while simultaneously addressing the long-term issue of a new or renovated central student center facility.
Examples of existing third spaces on campus are The Great Room and Lisa’s Cafe. Plans are underway to add another space this summer in a yet-to-be determined South Campus location.
Additional third space locations would create a network of localized, smaller facilities across campus, with Norris as the hub, Schapiro said.
“You work with what you have and try to figure out other ways to create a community,” he said. “Even if you are going to organize a community more by having separate student centers that different people are going to use … That’s not to say that somewhere in the distant future we won’t build a whole new one.”[email protected]
