A WOW! Wingery and the Fishbowl have been removed from campus and the Hippodrome is on its way out, students require a new area to make up for this loss of community space.

Filling that void would typically be difficult, but there is currently an unused space that could be revamped to resolve this loss of student meeting grounds.

The University should make the fifth floor of the Marvin Center into a student hangout and meet-up space.

The University is mulling over what to do with the fifth floor and it has proposed making the fifth floor a shared space for the more than 400 student organizations at GW.

There is value to this plan, as more than just the 60 student organizations that have fourth floor offices would then have easier access to student organization resources. That revamp would also allow students from a variety of organizations to meet and interact, and the platform would be ripe for new friendships and organizational alliances to be made.

But that situation is equally ripe for chaos. A shared student organization space might lead to too many students trying to use a single printer or meeting space might end up overbooked.

Most importantly, it also won’t be available to the students who don’t have work with a student organization, leaving a student need in suspension.

If the University really wants to provide students with a place where students will hang out and meet up, it should open it up to the whole community. The fifth floor of the Marvin Center doesn’t need to be changed to a shared student organization space as long as the fourth floor offices are there. It needs to be made into an area where students can have open mic nights and get together for a cup of coffee.

It needs to be a place that is GW.

As the University seriously mulls what to do with the fifth floor, it bears repeating that the University seriously lacks a GW-centric student space and that is what the fifth floor of the Marvin Center should be.

This staff editorial was updated on Oct. 6, 2011 to reflect the following:
The Hatchet erroneously said the Hippodrome has been removed from campus. It will be removed and replaced later this academic year.