By Ella Prieto, Managing and News Editor
Blueprint for Plank Basement renovations. (Photo Courtesy of Jon Allen)
The Office of Student Activities and Greek Life (OSAGL) is working to unveil new spaces for students to socialize and convene for the 2023-2024 school year. The new spaces include new activities in the Attic and plans to reformat Plank Basement, which is home to several clubs and organizations.
These spaces are the result of hard work and careful planning by OSAGL, College Life and other departments on campus.
Director of OSAGL Jon Allen explained that the process of renovating and exploring these new spaces began in the spring semester of 2022 with the first Student Senate Open. This acted as the first “Hand Over the Keys” event in The Attic, where clubs and organizations could run events serving alcohol. This could previously only be done in fraternities or college houses.
Attic Coordinator Geoffrey Meadville ’25 expanded upon the use of The Attic.
“Since The Attic is our only social space on campus, currently, that is available for events like this, we’re looking to create an environment where it emulates some aspects of a fraternity open, so the space feels similar, but has obvious differences,” Meadville said.
Meadville emphasized that The Attic is still open to Greek Life as well for events, and he explained how these spaces can hold events that are social activities rather than academic.
“It normalizes organizations doing an event that is more party and less educational or activity based. Organizations on campus do not have to be just fully educational, there is more to them, and that can include having a fun event in The Attic,” Meadville said. “We want organizations to branch out, which will help them attract more students.”
OSAGL and College Life saw these events as being successful, so they began to create more spaces. During the summer of 2022, they shifted their attention to the College Union Building (CUB). Upon requests from commuters, they created the Commuter Lounge in the CUB Lobby. Additionally, OSAGL has added games, such as pool and a play station, for students to use with their friends.
New activities in CUB. (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
As the fall semester of 2022 commenced, OSAGL and College Life observed how the spaces were being used. With an increase in students using the CUB Lobby as well as The Attic, Vice President for College Life Anne Ehrlich decided to create a Social Venues Taskforce in the Spring of 2023. Taking the recommendations from that Taskforce, OSAGL has continued to revamp places on campus, including The Attic and Plank Basement.
Member of the Social Venues Taskforce and President of the Student Body Andrew Lemon ’24 talked about the importance of the Taskforce.
“The Social Venues Taskforce is very important to the college, as social spaces are one of the most critical components in ensuring satisfactory campus life for our students,” said Lemon. “Our college has many great social spaces, but these areas can always be improved. Utilizing the efforts of the Taskforce, our committee was able to work to ensure that we can better build the spaces that our students use so often.”
Fellow Taskforce member and President of the Newman Association Natalie Vancura ’25 added that these new spaces recommended by the task force give “students more options for how they want to spend their free time and gets them out of their residence halls and into public spaces to have fun and build friendships… Ideally, the new spaces would revamp the current social scene and promote fun, new ways to engage with the Gettysburg community.”
Co-President of Listeners & Performers Ratul Pradhan ’25 served on the Taskforce as well and provided some history of Plank Basement to explain why the changes were being made.
“The college has a lot of spaces around campus that were changed from social spaces to Academic spaces during a time when there was a higher need for accommodating the increase in students, a prime example being the Plank Basement,” said Pradhan. “Now, with the decrease in student population, these spaces are heavily underutilized…. These spaces, when utilized properly, give students and their organizations a certain sense of independence and a space they can call their own.”
Students in the Attic. (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
Ehrlich served on the Taskforce as an administrator and commented on how these new spaces will act in relation to Greek Life.
“When I arrived just over two years ago, I heard loud and clear from students and staff that there were not many social alternatives for students who were not interested in the Greek Life scene,” Ehrlich said. “Let me be perfectly clear—I support Greek Life on campus. But I also acknowledge that not every student sees themselves in that space, so we want to provide alternatives so everyone on campus can find their people and feel that they belong. Our student body is diverse, and so if we truly strive to be an inclusive community, our social offerings need to be diverse.”
Allen echoed similar sentiments.
“We are trying to create more social spaces so that students can then define what kind of social experience they want. If they want to party or if they want to just hang out,” Allen said.
Overall, the Task Force made 42 recommendations for improvement. These broadly fell into four categories: education and communication, resources, policies and space. While some of these are complex and will take time to fully implement, some changes are already able to be seen.
One example is the use of The Attic more frequently, especially as it has become available for students every day from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
“It’s a very fun place to pass time with friends after a late night study and you want to take a break and meet new people. It’s a perfect place for you to be,” said Marcelo Estrada ’27.
Ashton Doll ’25 added, “I think The Attic’s a great space to just hang out and have a good time. I really like the Skee Ball.”
Clubs and organizations will now have more space in Plank Basement. Co-President of Listeners and Performers Jack Joiner ’25 spoke about what this means.
“We [Listeners and Performers] are trying to establish a legacy of music and a space where students, student bands, student performers can have a safe, inclusive space with something less formal than the Conservatory. We want to have that for years to come here. And having that space [in Plank Basement] will help foster that,” said Joiner.
E-Sports Club President Owen Labruna ’24 had similar feelings.
“Our new room in Plank basement gives us a permanent spot to grow the E-sports program. The room allows us to set up a layout that allows our teams to communicate better with each other as well as run our weekly fighting game tournaments more efficiently,” Labruna said. “A permanent space also allows us to consider infrastructure and hardware investments we could not before in our temporary space that will really accelerate our growth as an organization.”
As these new social spaces continue to grow and develop, clubs, organizations and individual students are able to reap the benefits and explore how new social spaces will continue to emerge.
Students enjoying games in the Attic. (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
This article originally appeared on pages 4 to 5 of the October 2023 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
