Gannon University’s publicity room will experience a facelift in February when members of the Student Government Association and the Activities Programming Board renovate the space with new art supplies, a paint job and improved lighting and heating.
The room, located in the lowest level of the Waldron Campus Center, provides student clubs and organizations with materials needed to make posters to advertise events – and some students say it severely needs an upgrade.
“It is a complete mess and missing most of the supplies down there,” said junior pre-med/biology major Kerri Stasiak, who also serves as SGA’s vice president of public relations. “As of now, it is an insufficient work place.”
Stasiak leads the five-person committee of SGA and APB members that will begin the project by cleaning the room Feb. 4. She noted that when Campus Services begins the more extensive upgrades, like fixing the heating issues and painting the walls, the publicity room will remain closed for about two weeks and the supplies will be relocated to either the SGA or the APB office.
Junior legal studies major Emily Taft, who also serves on the renovation committee, said the group hopes to breathe life into a room meant to foster student creativity. The group is looking into securing the room’s paper rolls to make them more usable, purchasing an iPod dock so students can listen to music while making posters and stocking the room with more art supplies as well as finding a better system to organize them, she said.
“The term to define the publicity room right now is ‘lacking’ – lacking in supplies, lacking in usability, lacking in comfort,” she said. “However, we want the students to know that we are working hard to make the publicity room even better and more usable for students.”
SGA and APB will split the cost of the paper and supplies, Stasiak said, though the exact cost has not yet been finalized. The university will cover the cost of the paint, lighting upgrades and other “major things,” she said.
Tom Panighetti, SGA president, noted that SGA’s public relations budget started at $1,000 at the beginning of the year and is split among many projects, including the publicity room. At Thursday’s SGA meeting, the general assembly will vote on how much money to provide to the project.
Stasiak said the renovations were taken on after students expressed concern to her that the room needed major help, and the publicity room is “a major project that is easy to resolve.”
“We provide students with supplies for their organizations – and even for school projects – so that they do not have to spend extra money on buying supplies,” she said. “We need to give them the adequate supplies and tools that they are paying for.”
