Camosun College about to get comfier
In response to a drought of comfortable student spaces on campus—where students often have no choice but to sit on tables and floors—the college, along with the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS), has ordered a few dozen couches and chairs to be placed on locations around the campus in the spring.
For CCSS external executive Matteus Clement, the need for more comfortable student spaces was an obvious one, according to the feedback he received from students.
“We would ask them what they care about,” says Clement. “One student said they wished there was a couch they could crash on, and all the other students just started chirping up. As soon as couches were mentioned, all of a sudden it became a very important issue.”
It just so happened that the college had a lead on some furniture. Marian Miszkiel, Camosun’s director of physical resources, says the college received a listing from the Vancouver Olympic Committee for asset disposal, including furniture from the Hudson’s Bay Company, at bargain-basement prices.
The college was in the midst of a project to enhance student spaces on campus, so they went for it.
Miszkiel says the college is looking for ideal locations to place the furniture without impeding the flow of foot traffic.
“The exact spaces where furniture can remain without being an obstruction to safety is something that we’ll finalize with the college,” says Miszkiel.
Clement says that once they learned about the college’s purchase of the couches, they decided to divert about $20,000 in funding from their student union building fund to match the purchase.
Clement wanted to provide more couch space for students who likely won’t be around to experience the joys of their own SUB.
“It’s not so much about a student building as it is about student space,” says Clement. “Even if that just means there’s a place where you can sit down with your friends and study, or a place where the overworked student exhausted from working two jobs and doing studies can nap. There needs to be a place where students can decompress; we’re already strung taut like a drum, and it’s not good for us.”
According to Clement, the couches will be placed in areas where students are known to congregate.
“It’s really easy to see where those spots are; you’ll naturally see where students congregate, with or without a couch,” says Clement.
So the CCSS made the same deal with the distributor, which would total about 150 couches and chairs between both campuses.
But Clement says it’s just a start.
“Between two campuses, it’s still sparse,” says Clement. “I’d like to see more, but it’s the best that we can do for now.”
The couches should arrive on campus in May.
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