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Students Welcome Student Lounge’s Makeover

The redesigned Student Lounge at Owens Community College held its official grand opening on Tuesday.

Located in College Hall, across from the Testing Center, the lounge now has board games, a video game console, air hockey and foosball. The Office of Student Life offered coffee and snacks for students during the grand opening.

The idea for an inclusive and fun spot for students to hang out formally started at the end of the 2023-24 academic calendar. According to Owens dean of Student Life Dr. Carrie Heller, though, it started much earlier than that.

“I walked by that lounge every day for a year, and I was really astonished with how beautiful the space is, but there were never any students in it,” Heller said. “This building is essentially the student union; it has all the components. Instead of a student having an hour-and-a-half in between classes and sitting by themselves in Heritage Hall or across the street, they can come over to the Lounge. We wanted to give the students a location where they potentially could make friends.”

The space was remodeled during the College Hall renovations in 2018. When Heller approached Facilities Services, she was thankful they were open to the idea of converting the space.

Funds were drawn from Student Activities and the Student Ambassadors to help purchase new items.

Already, Heller has seen the lounge bring students together.

“It’s been nice to see students grab their lunch then have it over there,” Heller said. “You have to create those spaces and engagement opportunities for students. They’ll take advantage of it once they see it.”

Angeline Olguin-Munoz and Justin Richardson were among the students who took advantage of the grand opening on Tuesday, but it wasn’t their first visit to the lounge.

“We just like to relax here, do our homework,” Olguin-Munoz said. “We started seeing the games here, so we started coming more. It’s just fun, like a little break. … You see your peers from different classes here. It’s really social.”

The social aspect and allowing students to create a community was important to Heller. James Zeller, the coordinator in Student Life, said the lounge gives students an opportunity to drop their mask and be authentic.

According to Richardson, the lounge has done all of that.

“You can kind of take a step back, you don’t have to be focused all of the time,” Richardson said. “You can actually have fun with people.”

For more information on Student Life and Student Activities, please visit owens.edu/studentlife.

You can find a calendar of events at owens.edu/events.