New renovations initiated by the student affairs office aim to make the Tiger’s Den popular. The room sits in limbo, and it’s up to students to decide the next steps for the Tiger’s Den.
Renovating the space has been in progress since before the COVID pandemic. The removal of the mailboxes on Oct. 11 marked a new phase of the Tiger’s Den improvements—gathering student input. While student affairs can’t please everyone, Andrew Wells, the vice president of student affairs, wants students to be creative and share what they want the Tiger’s Den to become on the student engagement survey.
“There’s some things that might show up in the feedback that are non-starters, but I want to be really sparing about what ideas are not on the table. I want to be really creative and find out something that’s going to be compelling long term,” Wells said.
When the mailboxes were in the Tiger’s Den, students were limited to what they could do in remaining space. Wells noted that the Tiger’s Den has a lot of potential to become a more welcoming area for students.
“Some mailboxes were in the Tiger’s Den that were not in use. And then there’s the campus publication space. It’s kind of the back of the room and it just felt like [the Tiger’s Den] wasn’t really welcoming and maybe not a very good use of the real estate in the middle of campus,” Wells said.
Now that the Tiger’s Den is more spacious, student affairs wants a staff member to work down there to make the space seem welcoming for more students. Catherine Fragoso, the interim director for student inclusion, belonging and engagement (SIBE), mentioned that having a consistent presence will make people using the Tiger’s Den feel welcome to use that room.
“There aren’t student employees that are staffed down in that space. In the future, we are hoping that we can make that type of a difference and a change so that when an individual comes into that space, they’re greeted,” Fragoso said.
While the Tiger’s Den is a visible example of campus renovations in action, there are other areas that student affairs and SIBE hope to improve according to the responses on the form. Fragoso said that she’s taking note of other areas that students want fixed.
Student organizations have already made use of the new space in the Tiger’s Den. Delta Theta Nu (DTN) held a mocktail event on Oct. 18, and the private room made the event a success. Ariana Oaxaca, sophomore computer science major and DTN recruitment chair, noted that she’s always seen the Tiger’s Den as a cool place to entertain others.
“It was a good use of the space, and you could have a lot of events down there with food. It’s such a nice area, especially now that the mailboxes are taken out. It just looks much more inviting,” Oaxaca said. “You can literally make it a space of your own if you put in the effort to make it look the way you want it to.”
The Tiger’s Den has always been available to students but many people haven’t used it for events. Elida Del Angel, sophomore business and global Latinx studies double-major and DTN recruitment chair, mentioned that she only thought of using the Tiger’s Den after the renovations.
“When I saw it, I was just like, ‘Oh, interesting.’ But I was never really curious to go into it until they started the renovations,” Angel said.
Ultimately, the renovations for any space on campus are dependent on student requests and available funding. Wells emphasized that the Tiger’s Den is a space for students, and their feedback will determine its fate.
“If I as ‘X’ number of years old VP come in and say, ‘My idea is we should have Pac-Man machines and arcade games in here and that’s what’s going to be exciting and fun,’ that may be really fun and exciting for 17 students here,” Wells said. “We want to structure and program the space so that it’s meaningful to students.”
