SGA gains visibility with Curris Center move

Erinn Finley News Editor efinley1@murraystate.edu

The Center for Student Involvement moved into a new office, which is smaller, but more visible to students due to its new location on the second floor where the post office was previously located.

The office changed as part of the spring renovations in the Curris Center, the new space is more segmented, allowing for more offices within the space.

This office holds the Student Government Association, the Office of Student Organizations and the Office of Greek Life.

Junior Ellie McGowan, Student Government Association president, said the staff loves the new office.

“I think, overall, this is a much better setup for all of our different organizations and all the different branches who serve out of this office,” McGowan said. “It gives us our own space to be able to have meetings and things, but also at the same time, we do have a common area … and we are more than able to connect with each other.”

Jeanie Morgan is the adviser to SGA and works with Student Organizations. She said the new office space is more visible to the student body than it was on the first floor of the Curris Center.

“One of the things was to move us into a more high visibility area, which we are, so I really like it here,” Morgan said. “We haven’t been here long enough to really get our things on the walls or what we want. It’s not completed yet, but I’m really excited about being in this location.”

Kade Gambill, Student Organizations coordinator, also mentioned the higher visibility of the new office.

“Now, we’re right up front on the second floor,” Gambill said. “I’d say the majority of students come to the Career Center to eat so they got to walk right past us. Some students have already walked in that didn’t even know what we were and just wanted to see what was going on, so that was great to kind of get some new exposure to the student body.”

Although the building has held up well over the years, Morgan said she thought it was time for renovations in the Curris Center. She said she has been working in the Curris Center since 1984, just a few years after it was built.

“There hasn’t been a lot done to the building, and when it was built, it was just one of those showcases, and we would have people come from different states to look at the Curris Center,” Morgan said. “We were very, very modern at the time, and the building has held up really really well. It gets so much use, and it was time for an overhaul.”

As the new office is smaller than their old office on the first floor office. Once Morgan said they did their best to prepare for the new office and to downsize.

“That was one of the things whenever they started talking about moving our office is we were going to lose a lot of space, and that was a concern,” Morgan said. “Because with this many people trying to work in here, it makes it difficult.”

The former Thoroughbred Cafe will also be turned into a meeting room to help with the space issue, Morgan said. The office staff will be able to use that meeting room as part of their office, and people will be able to check out the room for meetings through the Student Organizations office.

Gambill also said he prefers the new office.

“I enjoy the update,” Gambill said. “It’s more modern.”

McGowan says she hopes students will stop by the office more now it is more visible.

“We’ve really enjoyed being able to see more students, and we definitely want to see that continue, so I would definitely encourage any student who has any questions about SGA, or [Residential College Association], registered student organizations, Greek Life — whatever it may be to come stop by and chat with us,” McGowan said. “We would love to be able to see more students in this office space.”

There are still some small details remains to be finished in the office. Morgan says the name for the office will be put on the door, and some of the office doors will possibly be glazed sometime in the future.

“We plan on having a ribbon cutting, but it’s going to begin in the future because, like I said, we want to get everything finished and looking like we want it to be before we do any kind of official ribbon cutting, but we will do that eventually,” Morgan said. “We’ll get there.”