New student lounge opens on Neosho campus

By Ryan Land
Editor-In-Chief

Students that live in the dorms on the Neosho campus now have a new place to relax, without having to travel to the student center in the main building.

The new student lounge was created and opened this semester, giving students that reside in the Brown complex a place to spend time relaxing with friends. The lounge contains a living room with multiple chairs and sofas, as well as a flat screen television, a kitchen with all the necessary utilities for preparing food, a bathroom, and a game room where people can play a game of pool.

“We’ve constantly been trying to find a commons space for the dorm students that live in the Brown complex to have,” said Mark Aubuchon, campus life coordinator. “They don’t really have a commons space that they can go and watch television or play pool like the student center has, and the student center is not exactly right around the corner.”

The new lounge is located just behind the residence hall office, which was formerly Aubuchon’s apartment. Since the remodeling, Aubuchon has now relocated to the Roughrider Village complex.

Aubuchon mentioned the endless possibilities that the lounge can bring.

“We can have events, programs, birthday parties, scary movie nights during Halloween,” Aubuchon explained. “We’ve never had that opportunity before, and now we have it, and it’s great.”

Since Aubuchon started his job as Campus Life Coordinator back in July 2009, the idea of having a space for dorm residents to spend recreational time in has been high priority on his list.

“We’ve been talking about it since the day I got here,” Aubuchon stated. “The biggest concern that I saw in the residence hall was there was no space for students to just relax and sit and watch, you know, the MTV Music Awards or to watch a basketball game. That’s what I remember from when I was in college most of all was sitting together with a group of students you may not ordinarially interact with.”

Veronica Marroquin, occupational therapy major, enjoys going to the new student lounge to wind down from the activities of the school day.

“It just helps me relax more when I go there,” Marroquin stated. “I get to enjoy movies there because we don’t have TVs in our rooms.”

According to Tae’lor Monroe, general studies major, the convenience of not having to walk all the way to the student center in the main building is a plus for having the new lounge.

“It’s like right here,” explained Monroe, who is also a player for the Lady ‘Riders basketball team. “It’s better than walking all the way to the student center for sure. Everybody hangs out there and we just like to go in there.”

The hours for the student lounge are from noon-midnight, seven days a week. Students that do not live in the dorms are only allowed in the new student lounge upon invitation from a friend that lives in the Brown complex.