Posted Friday, April 6, 7:22 p.m.
A student service center will fill the empty space in the Marvin Center’s ground floor that the District Market grocery store inhabited until last summer.
Administrators met with student leaders Thursday and discussed how various departments located in Foggy Bottom will be moved to the 5,000-square-foot location in the Marvin Center. While many customer service representatives will come to the Marvin Center, many employees not directly interacting with students will relocate to GW’s Loudoun County, Va., campus.
Robert Chernak, senior vice president for Student and Academic Support Services, said the changes to the ground floor will empower students to easily get the help they need with many services.
“Students can find it easier, less time-consuming and less frustrating to do administratively what they need to do, so that they will have more time to do what they want to do at GW,” he wrote in an e-mail Friday.
Student Association President-elect Nicole Capp, who was at Thursday’s meeting, said she is reserving judgment on the plans until more details have been released.
“They said they’re bringing a few different services that are spread out on campus to one central location,” said Capp, a sophomore. “I haven’t had enough time to fully acquaint myself with the details, but the idea of bringing various services together to one place sounds promising.”
Junior Jay Kaplan, the incoming executive chair of the Program Board, is not as optimistic.
“The idea sounds great of integrating several offices into one location on the ground floor of the Marvin Center. We just have some doubts of if that is the best use of the Marvin Center space,” he said.
Officials said the plan would allow the University to better serve students.
“Basically this project is all about improving services for the students,” said Matt Lindsay, assistant director of Media Relations. “It’s making procedures and their dealings with University department easier and more efficient.”
SA Executive Vice President Josh Lasky, a senior, said that any plan that increases student space is positive. “So long as in that domino effect of spaces moving that some student space is created along the way I will be satisfied,” he said.
University officials plan to meet with students Monday to discuss more details of the plan.
-David Ceasar contributed to this report.
