Students groups and Washington University administration are discussing next steps after the University confirmed its plan to convert the Gargoyle and Mallinckrodt room 100A into offices and classrooms.

Beth Wiesinger | Student Life

The Gargoyle has been confirmed by the WU administration to begin its transition to offices and classrooms despite much student pushback.

Student groups strongly opposed the transition as they view the spaces as essential to their operations, after it was first announced to them March 7. Groups tried to convince the administration to reverse its decision, but after they learned it was final, they are now putting pressure on the administration to change the way it communicates with student groups.

Former Student Union Vice President of Public Relations and senior Rory Mather says he is frustrated with the University’s attempts at justifying its decision.

“I think there is still so much evidence that showcases this is a necessary space for student groups. And honestly, I think we gave so much information to them, and we honestly didn’t get a ton back to showcase that this change was as necessary as the space itself,” Mather said. “And so for us, we are going to fight until those doors are closed.”

According to Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Rob Wild, the idea to find new academic space came from the Office of Provost Holden Thorp.

“[The] Office of the Provost approached us sometime in mid-to-late fall. They basically let us know they were looking for space for a few different student-facing programs, and they asked us what we thought of the Gargoyle,” Wild said. “So, in late fall we looked at the space reservations with the staff and the Office of the Provost, and we determined that, of the spaces that we have on our portfolio, the Gargoyle was the one that was least used.”

Wild says the gap between the selection of the Gargoyle and the announcement was to avoid announcing a decision without the complete picture of who would be benefiting from it.

“I made [the decision] as Dean of Students to withhold on becoming public with this news until we knew what groups were moving into this space and until we knew for sure whether the work was going to happen this summer,” Wild said. “We just didn’t know what groups were going to move in until late February to early March, which is when we made the announcement.”

Thorp expects the new offices to be in use starting during the fall. He says the transition is necessary to give new space to student-facing academic programs and revitalize Mallinckrodt into an academic hub for students in the middle of campus. He pointed to the recent conversion of the Mallinckrodt multipurpose room into the Skandalaris Center as proof of concept.

“The movement of the Skandalaris center to Mallinckrodt has been a huge success,” Thorp said. “The Writing Center and Writing 1 are things where we’re going to have a lot of student traffic; so, we’re looking to make Mallinckrodt a really vibrant building, and this will be another great step in doing that.”

Thorp also highlights the positive feedback from faculty and staff set to move into Mallinckrodt.

“The Writing Center has been very enthusiastic, and Writing 1, I think, also recognizes that they need new space, and those are very important functions,” Thorp said.

The announcement of the conversion drew immediate backlash from student groups, with an online petition opposing the move reaching 1,000 signatures in a matter of days. Cultural dance groups, which make up a majority of the Gargoyle’s student reservations, decried the move as hypocritical given that the University utilizes them to advertise its diversity but is taking away their primary practice and performance space.

Other concerns included the elimination of a key space for storage and entertainment. Student groups were incensed that they were never consulted about the removal of a space that they deemed irreplaceable to their operation.

Wild says the criticism is fair, but that the decision is ultimately up to the University.

“Unfortunately, it was never going to be a full consultation because the way that the University needs to allocate space for its various programs, we can’t ever fully leave that responsibility solely with the students,” Wild said.

Wild is still confident that the University will provide adequate alternatives to the Gargoyle for student groups.

“After hearing concerns from students, we wanted to take every possible step we could to reassure students that we were making sure there would not be a negative impact on groups, either financially or in terms of their ability to get space,” Wild said.

The University has proposed several accommodations to offset the loss of the spaces, including subsidizing the rental cost of practice spaces, outfitting some spaces with mirrors to make them more performance friendly and making the Women’s Building dance studios available at no cost to performance groups who have a history of practicing and performing in the Gargoyle.

According to SU Vice President of Public Relations freshman Beth Wiesinger, however, student groups have panned the proposed solutions. Wiesinger shared a Google document of the accommodations and asked groups to share any problems under each solution. Each proposal received several complaints, with some racking up more than a dozen. Wiesinger said the University’s “inadequate” solutions were not going to resolve the groups’ complaints.

“I’m meeting with Wild sometime this week, and we’re trying to meet with Lori White and the Chancellor to give our side,” Wiesinger said.

Cultural groups are jumping into action as well, contacting their alumni to put pressure on the administration. Carnaval is giving free tickets to White, Wild, Thorp and Chancellor Wrighton and their families to showcase the importance of the cultural shows that will be displaced from practicing in the Gargoyle.

Thorp says he did not expect the backlash that arose from the decision.

“I did not expect it, and that’s mainly because when Student Affairs looked at the usage it didn’t seem like it was going to be something that would create this kind of problem,” Thorp said. “And because when we switched [the multipurpose room] over to Skandalaris, we didn’t have any problem either.”

Thorp says the recoil has spawned discussions among administrators about how to better communicate with students.

“The chancellor and I talked last week about how to set up a channel of communication that we really haven’t had since I’ve been here, where there’s an ongoing dialogue with student government or student groups,” Thorp said. “I think people should stay tuned for our plans on that.”

Mather says students groups are disheartened, and that they have not felt heard. According to Mather, for now, all the student groups can do is push for change in the future.

“In our op-ed we said what else do we need to do? What else is left? And I think there is nothing else we can do,” Mather said. “But I think that for us, until the day that those offices move in, we are still going to fight for it.”

Additional Reporting by Ted Moskal
Editor’s note: Rory Mather is a staff reporter for Student Life. Beth Wiesinger is a staff photographer for Student Life