When the School of Communication moves to the McKinley Building next semester, the third floor of the Mary Graydon Center will be repurposed.
However, no one will know what will happen to MGC’s third floor until all construction is finished, including the addition of East Campus to replace the Nebraska parking lot. East Campus is scheduled to be finished in 2016, The Eagle previously reported.
The floor currently contains five classrooms and numerous faculty offices that will likely be vacant after SOC relocates. The classrooms will continue to be used for at least the next few years, acting Director of Student Activities Michael Elmore said.
“The space is going to behave much like classrooms in the Ward Building behave. It has a lot of space, and you can hold events in it,” Elmore said.
Some components of SOC will also stay in MGC for the immediate future, like the photo labs and the video game program.
Currently, the floor is often at full capacity and heavily utilized by classes, clubs and other events, Elmore said.
“The third floor is bursting at the seams,” Elmore said. “There are more people in the building using services and not as much dead time.”
The space may become a student center with spaces for general use rather than rooms devoted to class or professor offices. Since 2001, administrators have discussed the possibility of making MGC into a student union, Elmore said.
While hopes are high for some, however, creating a student union may be complicated since many groups may try to expand onto the floor, Elmore said.
Until the move to McKinley becomes more concrete, many potential changes are on hold.
“All the decisions about the third floor can’t be made today,” Elmore said.
