One stop party?

That’s what the Hub has become: a place where students hang out and make noise instead of the ‘one stop shop to foster interactive learning and collaboration”, however, it has become a place for students to hang out and make noise, delaying the ability of other students trying to get work done.

Conceptually, the Hub is great. The Hub was meant to be the holy mecca for students wishing to get work done. It would have academic study centers, a college and career center, and it would host the Saturday Wildkit Academies.

However, the Hub has a wide open area for students to talk, and the few study centers are cramped and exponentially smaller than the classrooms they used to reside in. Daily, the Hub receives over 300 students per lunch period, and over 1000 students per day. It may be physically impossible for you to cram a huge amount of high school students into one area where they are free to eat and talk freely, and expect any work to get done.

There are many aspects of the Hub that can be implemented to make it very academic friendly space. The Evanstonian Public Library implemented a teen loft that offers a closed off space with a door where kids can go in and do quiet study or work on group projects. The Hub does have large glass cubicles with benches for students to work in, however they are very open. If the Hub had a large walled off space for kids to go in and have a quiet study area by themselves or with a group, we could avoid the nightmare that is the wide open tables and space that entice students to be as loud and obnoxious as they want.

Students need a place to hang out during the school day and so in this regard, the hub serves that purpose.

For students that find the hub a little too loud and unorganized, both the BCC, MRC and Central Library offer a quiet alternative.