Group proposal project

Building an Active Campus Community:

A Proposal for a Student Center at CCNY

Figure 1: Our designed student center

March 27, 2023

Nullus

Sadaf Nizam
Zenyra Souza
Fatima Anjum
Mymona Tasnim

Introduction:

Have you ever considered the student center’s limitless potential to boost engagement among students, foster a stronger sense of community, and promote student enrollment? This proposal emphasizes the advantages of a student center that can support the growth of our college. Most CUNY schools do not currently have a dedicated area for students to interact socially, find amusement, and join together as a community. As a result, it makes them feel disconnected from campus life, which can increase stress levels, hinder academic performance, and ultimately diminish their sense of happiness with the university. Students really only come to go to class and leave immediately after, which leads to little student engagement on campus. In order to address this issue, we propose the development of a student center that may act as a focal point for all facets of student life. Creating a specific location for student engagement can not only enhance one’s college experience but also attract more students.

To support our proposal, we can draw upon the results of our most recent survey. Our survey was conducted among 100 CCNY students to find what they prefer in a student center. From our survey, it can be seen that most students just want a silent space to study in or relax, to charge both their technology and their bodies. They had also mentioned wanting a place to just be able to talk to new people and socialize. (The survey includes more student preferences and a more detailed version can be found in the appendix.)

Figure 2: Student suggestions for what they would want in a student center

Furthermore, the significance of a student center is further illustrated in articles from private colleges. The impact of active campus involvement has a very positive effect on a student’s mental health. The article “The Privilege of Ease: Social Class and Campus Life at Highly Selective, Private Universities” by Nathan D. Martin tells us how an energetic community can have a huge impact on one’s academics. According to Martin, “ students who are more involved in campus life are more satisfied with their college academics and social experiences.” In general, a student center can give students a secure space that promotes their overall wellbeing. It offers opportunities for socialization, relaxation, access to support services, and academic support, all of which can help students to feel more connected, supported, and better able to manage the demands of college life.

Action Plan:

Now for the building itself, we plan to do a lot for the students. We plan to make it near the architect and research building as there is a lot of land there for a new building. Even though not a lot of students go there now, we believe it’s because they just have no reason to go there. If we were to build a student center there, most likely the students would flock there more. We plan to make our student center, named Bubrow Hall and to be four stories tall, including a basement. Bubrow hall will be 104,000 square feet in total, with each floor being 20,800 square feet. We plan to have a gaming space, a tutoring center, a lounge area including stores for the students to get food in, help desks, a quiet floor, rooms for the many clubs at the school to rent out, multiple courts in the gym, a library, and even a rooftop garden for the students to be able to relax in.

Basement: The basement is meant to be a gym for the students to go to and get some exercise. It includes a basketball court, three badminton courts, and a volleyball court. So lots of room for everyone to play their favorite sport with their fellow students. There’s also bleachers for students to simply just sit and watch, to support their fellow students.

Figure 3:Floor plan for the basement

First Floor: The first floor is used as a lounge for the students.It includes a gaming room for the students including many gaming pcs that can be rented out, multiple tv’s connected to a switch and comes with enough controllers and coop games for the students to be happy, and comfy sofas that make you never want to get up again. There’s a tutoring center for students to walk in if they were studying and needed help with a certain problem. A lounge with a lot of tables for students to study or chill with friends. There are also a couple of shops for food including a Starbucks and chick-fil-a that the students themselves wanted the most on the survey.

Figure 4:Floor plan of the first-floor

Second floor: The second floor is the club and library floor. Here clubs can rent a room here if they already don’t have a space for themselves in the other buildings. Students will also be able to go to the club rooms and see if anything sparks their interest instead of not knowing if it even exists because alot of clubs in the school are hidden away and unknown to the general population. There is also a library here for students to check out books, however, this library will have more fiction and novels instead of dusty books no one touched in years like the ones in the North Academic Center.

Figure 5:Floor plan of the second-floor

Third floor: The third floor is known as the quiet floor, it’s just a floor for students too study and sleep. We offer closed-off cubicles and desks for students to work at without losing focus, and even closed-off rooms if a group wants to study together. There is another tutoring center here, like on the first floor, except here it’s just a bit quieter.

Figure 6:Floor plan of the third-floor

Fourth Floor: The fourth floor is meant to be an open roof where there is a garden. Students can help grow the plants themselves, which can teach them valuable skills and help them communicate more with the other students who might also be planted at the same time. There will also be a lot of tables for students to sit and enjoy the fresh air, as well as ping pong tables as that was one of the things students wanted most for entertainment in the survey.

Figure 7:Floor plan of the fourth-floor roof

Construction Timetable:

The construction timetable (figure 11) shows how the building will be constructed and when each part will start. The proposed starting construction date is on March 24, 2023, and will end on approximately October 18, 2023. It can be referenced in the appendix.

Costs and Benefits:

Costs:

We estimated that we need around 44 million dollars to complete the whole construction of the student center and make it ready for the students to use it. Here is the breakdown of all the costs:

Item	Cost
Construction materials ($331 per square foot)	$34,424,000
Plumbing	$1,600,000
Fire Protection	$405,000
Electrical	$5,000,000
Design contingency	$2,500,000
Furniture	$157,250
Miscellaneous	$50,000
Total	$44,136,250

Benefits:

There would be a lot of benefits to creating a student center both in terms of the students and the actual university. Students will be able to spend time there between classes and have both a place to study as well as make friends and relax in their free time. In the survey we sent to the student body there were a lot of things that they found missing from the campus, things that could be in the student center. “Please have plenty of seats with access to an outlet of some sort. A lot of the time, I find myself walking around aimlessly looking for somewhere to sit down and do some work before my next class”, this was a response we got in the survey and is easily fixed by having the lounge and quiet rooms. This way the student who wrote this can work in peace near an outlet. Most of the other responses are quite similar as they all mention wanting either a place to sit and sleep, outlets, couches, and quiet study places. Students typically use libraries for these things, however, they deserve a place dedicated to these concerns. The university itself would be able to benefit from the student center as it could boost the rate of student applications and retention. If more students came to the school and stayed until graduation that means the school would make more money from tuition and other fees. Students would see the university building a student center as the university caring about their student’s well-being and wanting to go here instead of anywhere else. So overall it can help students’ well-being as well as interest more students to want to come here.

Our Team – The Nullus

Our team consists of students with a strong passion for studying and exploring the intricacies of the STEM field and they are motivated to pursue their careers in the engineering field.

Zenyra Souza is a 1st-year mechanical engineering student at The City College of New York. She was a member of the national honors society and has previously tutored mathematics to fellow students. She has also previously taught electric guitar and trumpet. Zenyra can effectively use software like Word, docs, excel, etc. She also has experience in building computers and finding solutions to fixing them. Her interests include traveling, sports, astronomy, music and art.

Sadaf Nizam is currently a freshman at CCNY intending to major in Mechanical Engineering. In the past, he worked at a library’s Best Buy Teen Tech Center where he helped several students with their homework and taught them many skills such as 3D printing and CAD. Additionally, he volunteered at countless robotics competitions which helped him hone his leadership and communication skills. He is very disciplined and hardworking when it comes to his work ethic. He intends to explore the Engineering field and learn about all of the new fantastic technology currently being made.

Fatima Anjum is a current freshman studying biomedical engineering at CCNY. In the past, she taught kids Arudino and 3d modeling at an internship, she was also part of her high school robotics team which taught her lots of essential skills. She is very hardworking and well-learned, as she knows a lot about CAD and programming, as well as using office 360 software. She hopes to learn more about Engineering and use her knowledge to help people.

Mymona Tasnim is a first-year Chemical Engineering student at CCNY. She is skilled in different softwares like Microsoft Word and Excel. She became the runner-up of the National Science Talent hunt in Bangladesh. Her interests include traveling and content creation. She also has her own YouTube Channel with more than one thousand subscribers. She is really hard-working, punctual and disciplined.

Conclusion:

The student center will serve as a centralized location for students to gather, study and socialize which will increase student engagement and build a healthier campus community. It can also help fix many problems that students are currently facing, such as finding connections, seeking entertainment, and needing a place to relax. All of these factors contribute to the well-being of students and help them release all of the academic stress they go through. Our proposal outlines the specific costs and benefits of the student center which can help the college prosper in the future with loads of admissions. Additionally, due to our student center’s versatility and latest technologies, it can be changed to adapt to new trends to deliver the needs of our students for years to come. Therefore, we believe that investing in our project will open a pathway toward a bright and active future for our college.

References: