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- Mydel Clozin, an electrical engineering major and Ruben Munoz, a computer engineering major playing ping pong in the game room
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- High schoolers Kenny Beaubrun (far right), Jaylen Walker (center) and Franky Augustine (left) playing video games in the game room.
Written by Camila Fernandez/BBC Managing Editor
A hub for gamers and social gatherings, the Wolfe University Center Game Room is scheduled for a makeover.
After a time of students and staff advocating for new gaming systems and a more casual outlook to the room, the Wolfe University Center and the Student Government Association agreed to revamp the area.
According to Jazmin Felix, student government president at the Biscayne Bay Campus, new additions to the game room located in WUC 222 include a pool table and a third television screen. There will also be new furniture such as bean bag chairs and new gaming systems like the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Wii U.
Currently, there are two high definition televisions, a Xbox 360 Kinect and a Nintendo Wii. There is also a variety of video games and board games, four chess tables and a ping pong table.
According to Felix, the game room closes this summer for renovations and is expected to reopen during the University’s fall Week of Welcome.
“There’s a huge population of students that use the game room and they’re in there like day and night,” Felix said. “Here are students who use the game room to its fullest capacity. It’s a center for communion so we just want to make it as comfortable and as inviting as possible,” she said.
Scott Jones, director of the WUC, said an estimate price for the renovation is between $50,000 to $80,000. Less than half will be used for furniture while the rest of the funds will go to the gaming systems and the table games.
There will be no changes to the carpet floor nor the lighting of the room.
“Two years ago, the game room was the front burner of the conversation. [Now,] in collaboration with SGA, [we want] to get the highest utilization for students in the game room,” Jones said.
Jones also said that due to renovations of the WUC Panther Plaza and Panther Square, the game room was later further addressed.
The game room opened during the fall of 2011 as part of the complete architectural design for the renovation of the WUC. Felix said a survey will be sent out by e-mail at the end of the semester for student suggestions on what they would like to see in the new game room.
Felix also said that the SGA is looking to bring in hammocks around campus. However, due to risk management issues, a decision has not been finalized yet.
“I’m sitting down with the director of facilities to see how we can work that out — if there’s an alternative to hammocks,” she said.
Assistant Operations Manager at the WUC, Kwan Wallace, has been advocating for the new game room space. He said students are constantly asking for a pool table and new, more casual furniture.
“We’re looking forward to it being a more of a game room space because right now, it’s like a space that [just] has games,” Wallace said.
“I see [the game room] as a great meeting space for the students to kind of come and interact with each other and I think its been a great addition to the Wolfe Center,” he said.
Students like Thierry Escarment, student assistant at the WUC and a junior computer engineering major, say they are excited to see a newly furbished game room.
“I think it’ll be like something new when you walk into the room. I’m tired of seeing the same old carpet, same old chairs,” said Escarment.
Escarment also said he enjoys the game room. He always looks forward to small tournament games like ping pong and chess competitions.
“There’s never not an interesting moment. [I] get into pretty heated chess fights,” Escarment said. “[The room] gives students a place to just hang out and blow off some steam from all the studying.”
camila.fernandez@fiusm.com
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