by Soren Ryan-Jensen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the uninitiated, CentreWorks is an office of the college which was founded in 2020 to provide a space for Centre students to work directly with the local community. CentreWorks also refers to the space on the third floor of 236 West Main Street, which used to be accessible to students. Unfortunately, as of the Spring of 2023, students lost access to the space after the original directors of CentreWorks left. The office itself was left in an ambiguous state with no replacement staff to guide it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The replacement director of CentreWorks, Dr. Jennifer Gander, was interviewed by Cento writers in 2024 to establish what the future of CentreWorks might look like. Dr. Gander\u2019s vision of CentreWorks going forward was largely similar to that of the previous director\u2019s, with a few key changes. Namely, that the space would not be directly accessible to students, and instead was only reservable with some uncertainty as to whether students would even be able to reserve spaces themselves. Previous to Dr. Gander, students had swipe access into the space from 9am-5pm. Dr. Gander also mentioned a desire to include local high school and college students into CentreWorks, specifically pointing to how the space had been used for summer camps, courses, and internships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the reaction to these changes was mixed, especially in regards to reducing student access. Over time, faculty began to use the space for classes and meetings, though the office remained somewhat stagnant. Nonetheless, discontent with the direction of CentreWorks remained though its limited impact on most students led to it somewhat exiting the conversations on Centre\u2019s campus. Our current SGA President, Caroline Koenig, did attempt to work with the office to change its relationship with students, but once again the office has changed hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new head of the office is Jess Metzmeier who is now responsible for CentreWorks, the Center for Career and Professional Development, the Office of Alumni Engagement, and the Office of Development. Once again, the future of CentreWorks is uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the graduation of the current senior class, it feels like the experience of a fully functioning CentreWorks will no longer be in the living memory of the student body. For the last three years, the space and the office have lived in a liminal space of sorts, and it seems like that won\u2019t change soon considering SGA has no new initiatives targeting the space going forward. Personally, the space existing as an occasional meeting space for faculty or classes seems a very strange use for a very unique space. As someone who did use to study there, it was a wonderful way to get off campus in the middle of downtown, and I hope future students get to experience the space, even if the way they engage with it has to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Soren Ryan-Jensen For the uninitiated, CentreWorks is an office of the college which was founded in 2020 to provide a space for Centre students to work directly with the local community. CentreWorks also refers to the space on the third floor of 236 West Main Street, which used to be accessible to students. Unfortunately, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9374,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions\/9374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}