DeKALB – The Northern Star entrance has moved as the office undergoes construction and the space is reconfigured to create room for the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center.
Renovations to the Northern Star office, Peters Campus Life Building, Room 175, began on Dec. 16 to allocate space for the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC). At the beginning of the year, the GSRC was temporarily moved from Arndt House to the Health Services Building, 285 Wirtz Drive, because of a leak in the roof of Arndt House.
The Arndt House was “a home away from home” for students, according to GSRC Director Molly Holmes.
“It wasn’t really our choice to move from that location with the roof not working, but we pivot to ‘what are some possibilities in a move?’” Holmes said. “For our students who have experienced our previous location and our temporary location, they’re encouraged to see something evolve to be more useful or more dynamic than they had before, while still having some of that dedicated space that they were used to with the previous location.”
The move will be useful for the GSRC and its collaborative efforts with other campus offices.
“We’re really excited to move into the Peters Campus Life Building because of the many offices that are already there that serve our students,” Holmes said. “We work with most of the offices in there regularly and we’re excited to work more with the ones that we haven’t as much because everyone has the same mission as we do in serving everybody on campus.”
To create a permanent space for the GSRC, the Northern Star office was reconfigured. Shelley Hendricks, the Northern Star’s adviser, said the renovations to the office are useful for both the GSRC and the Northern Star.
“The temporary home that they’re in now I don’t think was ever intended to be a suitable space for them,” Hendricks said. ”We had more space than we needed. So they reconfigured the Northern Star space to still give the Northern Star the space it needs in the Peters Campus Life building but reorganized it where it’s useful.”
The new entrance to the Northern Star office is next to the vending machines on the first floor of the Peters Campus Life Building, 545 Lucinda Ave. The old Northern Star entrance will be the new entrance for the GSRC after renovations are complete.
“If they (students) want to visit the Northern Star and go to our old entrance, we are not there anymore,” Hendricks said. “We’re still in the Peters Campus Life Building, but now our new entrance is going to be in the student lounge area.”
Hendricks said she is glad the GSRC will be able to have a more permanent space on campus.
“We’re happy to continue to be in the space we’ve been in since 1994,” Hendricks said. “Being centrally located on campus is essential for news gathering.”
Northern Star Editor-in-Chief Brynn Krug also believes the renovations are a good resolution for the Northern Star and GSRC.
“I think it’s great that we were able to come up with a solution that gives us ample space as well as them,” Krug said. “I think that the reconstruction was done in such a way that fortunately we’re still going to have enough space to keep doing our day-to-day operations. I’m glad we were able to find this method of reconstruction in a way that lets us keep all that and also keep our same location within Campus Life.”
The GSRC has not moved into their new space yet as renovations have not been completed. The GSRC is still temporarily located on the third floor of the Health Services Building.
“I expect that we’ll know [the move-in date] in the next couple of weeks, but we just don’t know in this moment,” Holmes said.
A statement from Facilities Management and Campus Services said the goal of the remodel is to maximize use of underutilized space.
“The GSRC was displaced last year from their original location in the 85-year-old Arndt House that was determined to be no longer economically viable to repair,” the statement said. “The reconfigured suite for the Northern Star is designed to meet their current needs.”
Space in the Northern Star office was originally intended for print media. The dark room and printing area were being used as storage.
“Their new suite also includes a central conference room, better separation of editorial and advertising work areas and a new private office,” the statement said. “A secondary entrance was also maintained and will provide after hours access to accommodate the 24/7 Northern Star needs.”