The Association of Black Students continued their 2020 Black History Month programming series, Feb. 25 in the Orchid Room, with the third annual “Black Talks, Black Thoughts,” which offered students and faculty the opportunity to give a 10 minute presentation on any topic of their choosing.

A plan to move Student Technology Services into a renovated Ursa’s Stageside is in preliminary stages, according to Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Rob Wild.

Currently, a petition on Change.org is circulating amongst the student body, urging the University and Danforth University Center Event Management to re-open Ursa’s for studying as the space is only used currently for events.

An online petition requesting an increase in Ursa’s hours has garnered support from students and has received attention from the Office of Residential Life, which manages the space. While the venue used to host open study hours, it is now only open for specific programs through Ursa’s Nite Life and other campus groups.

Ursa’s Nite Life is seeing an increase in attendance at their social events after spending a significant portion of last year closed and unattended.

After establishing itself as a prime dining and hangout space for South 40 residents in the 1990s and early 2000s, Ursa’s Nite Life (formerly Ursa’s Cafe) has been forced to downsize in recent years. Following the 2008 expansion of Bear’s Den, the cafe began to face mounting deficits as students flocked to the larger dining hall for their early and late-night dining needs.

In hope of maintaining transparency with the student body, members of the Office of Residential Life staff spoke at Ursa’s on Thursday evening to answer the many questions about housing that students had submitted via a Congress of the South 40 survey two weeks prior.

With the recent news that Ursa’s Cafe will stop serving food starting Nov. 24, it’s safe to say that yet another plan to reinvigorate the previously popular Bear’s Den alternative has failed. Soon, no student on campus will remember Ursa’s as it was in its heyday, when students swarmed the crepe station and hot chocolate bar for late-night snacks.

Colorful Herve Leger, Erin Fetherston and Badgley Mischka frocks turned Ursa’s Cafe into a designer boutique on Monday night when Rent the Runway put on its first large-scale event at Washington University.

From hot chocolate to artisan coffees to bubble tea—whatever comes next, the students will decide. The space in Ursa’s previously occupied by Bloom Coffee—and in previous years a hot chocolate bar—has been renamed The Incubator, a space where students can voice their opinions about what they’d like to see.