The Daily Gamecock

New Leadership and Service Center will engage students

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The new Leadership and Service Center is set to open this semester designed to engage students just steps away from Einstein Bros. Bagels on the second floor of Russell House.

An official opening date has yet to be determined, but hastiness wasn't the goal for Kim McMahon, Director of Campus Life and the Russell House University Union. 

“What’s been important to me and this project the whole time is that we open when we’re ready,” McMahon said about the official opening date. 

Student Government executive officers — who made the move to the Blatt Physical Education Center last year — will return to the Leadership and Service Center, joining campus community student engagement programs, according to McMahon. 

The back of the Center houses the Student Government executive suite. It is in a separate section to give the Student Government a clearly defined space, but it also contains open areas that Student Government can use to engage the student body.

The center is set up to give students plenty of space to work, use Wi-Fi and set up shop in one of the many new seats at one of the various screens.

Instead of restricting students to a certain area with one whiteboard, students can go almost anywhere in the space to collaborate. The center's many walls and glass doors are multifunctional, serving as writing surfaces students can use grease markers on.

Staff offices are nonexistent in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, the entire center is an office. Desks sit adjacent to collaborative areas, so students can readily access the center's staff.

The center has a conference, complete with group video capabilities via a built-in Skype camera, speakers and flat-screen monitor. The glass doors give passerby a look into what's going on.

One of the center's largest rooms is what McMahon calls "The Lawn,” a room with a wall-sized bay window that overlooks Greene Street. The room's seating is movable, so it can constantly be transformed for different needs. In the back of the room, there are cushioned steps that lead up to an amphitheater-type space.

“We’re connecting Gamecocks out," McMahon said, "but we’re also bringing the world in."


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