Culture Center moves to Ashton

The First Nations Educational and Culture Center will move to a new location Thursday.

The center, currently located in two remodeled dorm rooms on the sixth floor of Eigenmann Hall, will move to seven rooms on the second floor of Ashton Weatherly Hall.

“We’ve been waiting for months,” said Mary Connors, program assistant at the center. She added the new location is close to the middle of campus, making the center easier to access and more visible to students.

The center opened in Eigenmann in April 2007, but its location was considered temporary.

“We don’t have room for growth here,” said Lillian Casillas, the center’s interim director.

Casillas said the director will have an office at the new location, making it easier to meet with people and speak with students who come in for advice. She said right now if a student comes in with a problem, she has to ask people to leave the room or find somewhere else to go, which can be very inconvenient.

The new location will also include an office for the program assistant and resource rooms with the center’s periodicals, copies of Indian Country newspaper, DVDs and two book collections.

“Students like to have their own space,” Casillas said. “It’s an opportunity to give space to the students.”

She added some students like to come to the center to talk and socialize, study in quiet or use the computers. With only two rooms, it was hard to have this all happen at once because it was easy to overhear from one room to the other.

Connors said additional rooms at the center would serve as a computer lab and a playroom for children when they visit the center. She added the center also hopes to use one room to install equipment to continue to hold long-distance learning video conferences with American Indian students in other states.

Casillas said the center organizes cultural activities and now has a place to store supplies and hold workshops.

The center will hold an open house and second anniversary celebration from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 14. Casillas said the open house will be a wonderful way to combine the anniversary with the move.

Casillas said the center would open this Friday, even if they are still unpacking.