New lounge spaces greet students at ECC
By Emily McFarlan emcfarlan@stmedianetwork.com August 31, 2011 6:06PM
Louie Geanakoplos (right) and Michael Schoening study in the newly renovated Jobe Lounge at Elgin Community College in Elgin on Wednesday. | Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: November 30, 2011 12:23AM
ELGIN — It used to be “the carpeted lounge” at Elgin Community College. It also was home to a monumental stone staircase that dropped from the second floor into the middle of the space.
When the fall semester began last week, the Jobe Lounge still was carpeted, but bigger and sans staircase, and just one of several renovated student spaces ECC, 1700 Spartan Drive.
“It’s a lively place — a lot of activity there,” Elgin Community College spokesman Jeff Julian said.
The Jobe and Hub lounges, cafeteria and meeting rooms all got a face-lift this summer in the college’s renovations to its Student Resource Center, budgeted at $24 million. That’s all part of its Facilities Master Plan, funded by the $178 million bond referendum voters approved in April 2009.
The renovations to the SRC — so far, under budget — began in May 2010 and will be complete by summer 2012. The college’s tutoring center is scheduled to move to the new Academic Library and Learning Center when it’s completed in December, according to Julian. The center has a temporary home in one of the building’s meeting rooms
The college also will roll out new signs and rename its buildings from a three-letter acronym to a single letter by next summer, the spokesman said.
“It’s not easy, and we want it to be easy,” he said. “Whether you’re a new student or a community member, we want you to find your classroom in an efficient manner.”
Chandler Miller, 18, of Carpentersville remembered the Jobe Lounge being “a lot smaller, less open.”
Miller is a first-year student in the college’s nursing program, but she spent a lot of time visiting friends at the college last year, she said. This year, she’s spending a lot of time in the lounge.
On Wednesday, she was working on a psychology paper, she said, sitting on one of the padded seats circling the lounge, with a laptop across her knees. Jobe now can seat 120 people — twice what it could before renovations, Julian said.
“I’m here from 9:30 in the morning to 10 at night, and there’s these long gaps between classes,” Miller said. “It’s nice to be able to sit somewhere.”
Across the lounge, students lined up 12 deep to play “The TV Game Show” on an inflatable screen.
Jobe also features a big-screen TV and several tables with wheeled, padded chairs where students can eat. That’s because the cafeteria now feeds into the lounge, as well as opening into the hallway, instead of hiding behind closed doors.
The inside of the cafeteria has been redesigned and will be completed soon when a kiosk serving Dunkin’ Donuts products will move into the space, Julian said.
The big-screen TV and arcade games from the Hub Lounge have moved to a gaming space behind Jobe, leaving the Hub “an open study area,” the spokesman said. The college will hold contests for students to rename both the Hub and new gaming space this year, he added.
Most Facilities Master Plan projects are expected to be completed by summer 2012, according to the college’s website.
The first was completed in late January, when the college moved all the programs at its Fountain Square Campus in downtown Elgin to the new Multipurpose Classroom Building on its main campus. The library and a Health Careers Center are expected to be completed in time for the spring 2012 semester, Julian said.
More information about Elgin Community College’s Facilities Master Plan is online at elgin.edu/masterplan.
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