With the beginning of spring and budding trees, President Judy Olian notified returning students about the changes they can expect in the next several months.
Olian addressed the Quinnipiac community in a short video on the Quinnipiac Instagram page last Tuesday. She then described the new upgrades in store for the 2019-2020 school year as well as for the commencement ceremony.
Rocky Top Bar and Restaurant
“This summer, we will make improvements to the Rocky Top Student Center,” Olian said, “adding furniture, a pool table, TVs and a bar area with extended food service.”
Senior and SGA Vice President to the senior class, Allison Kuhn, began working on the proposal for the York Hill pub last year. Kuhn said that she remembers “mini-initiatives” for arcade games at Rocky Top since she was a freshman.
“I was inspired to go for a pub after learning that Fairfield, Sacred Heart and a ton of other schools in the area have a pub,” Kuhn said.
Kuhn said she was not only thinking about the students. She noticed that alumni had nowhere on campus to go to mingle. Instead, they were going to establishments off campus, like Eli’s or Alberto’s.
“Getting alumni back on campus is a big part of this,” she said.
Along with Kuhn’s proposal came several trial and error pub nights on York.
“We were told that for the first pub night, we were going to go big or go home,” Kuhn said. “It was going to be a two-drink maximum, beer only. And we argued that is not realistic. A bar is going to have beer, wine and liquor and there would be no maximum. No one is going to come somewhere and have one beer.”
It was not a simple process. After Kuhn’s advisor, Matt Kurz, spoke the Vice President and Dean of Students, Monique Drucker, they agreed there should be no drink limit.
“They put the trust in the students to behave,” Kuhn said. “And students showed there was no problem with that. No one dropped a drink, no one was drunk, no one broke anything. There were no issues.”
When asked about whether QU Dining or outside restaurants would be running the pub, Kuhn answered that neither she nor the administration knew yet.
“I think obviously [QU Dining] would like to be a part of this,” she said. “[QU Dining] has done an amazing job at the Sacred Heart pub, it is a separate restaurant. It is not your regular dining options. We went to the Sacred Heart pub and it was phenomenal. That is how I want our Quinnipiac pub to look like.”
Updated Residence Halls
In her announcement, Olian also said that sophomore residence halls would be upgraded over the summer, starting with Perleoth, Larson and Troup. A/C is one of the most anticipated updates to the housing buildings.
The addition of air conditioning to the remaining residence halls will follow over the next few years, Olian reported.
When freshman journalism and psychology major, Gianna Petruccelli, found out that she had to live in Larson for two years in a row, she was not happy.
“Basically, when I found out I was living in Larson again, I was really angry,” Petruccelli said. “I’m not kidding, I was really angry. I was, like, this is going to suck two years in a row.”
Petruccelli said that, at the beginning of the year, she got bronchitis and had to go home because there was no A/C. When she saw Olian’s Instagram announcement, Petruccelli was excited.
“When I heard they were getting air conditioning, that was a game changer,” Petruccelli said. “I would rather be in Larson with A/C than Village with no A/C. So, I’m happy.”
Commencement
Olian also highlighted in the Instagram video what graduating students would see at commencement on April 30 and May 1.
“It will include innovative academic work from students and staff, faculty and student talks and theatre and musical performances,” she said.
Senior John Khillah was pleased to hear Olian’s announcement, commenting that past senior classes never received shoutouts from former President John Lahey.
“I hope administration listens to seniors in the years to come to understand their concerns and make their experience better,” Khillah said.
