Student clubs have reportedly been sharing lounge spaces on campus
On Jan. 9, the Biology Undergraduate and Graduate Society (BUGS) posted a notice on their Instagram page in which they announced that the BUGS lounge would be temporarily closed effective immediately as of Jan. 13. The post elaborated that the lounge would be closed to BUGS members to accommodate “space needs for the faculty of science”, and that it would be available again for the members at the end of June.
Why was the lounge closed
Gracie Farago, the president of BUGS, expressed her thoughts on the matter to the Carillon in a conversation over email. Farago mentioned that she got an email in the beginning of the new year which said that the faculty of science have ongoing projects for which they needed the space. The nature of the projects was, however, not disclosed in the email. They were informed that people from other spaces will be temporarily moved into the BUGS lounge.
The Carillon inquired about how the BUGS members feel about the situation. Farago said that members are hopeful that this situation will be resolved by June.
“At the very least, we have a date that they’ve given us that’ll be until the end of June. So, we can look forward to hopefully getting it back,” she said.
Impacts of a shared space
Farago recognizes both the positive and negative impacts of the space being shared with other members of the faculty of science. She stated as a positive, that the faculty has been very accommodating. She, however, also shared some downsides of the situation.
“Because there are people working there, although it’s a shared space for maybe our executive team, our general members can’t use the space, because there are people working in there all the time.”
She further elaborated that many students use the space to study, microwave their lunches, and socialize. With the confusion of the shared space, Farago received many emails from the members inquiring about the situation. She recalled having reassured the members that this is only temporary.
“I hope that once this temporary shared accommodation is over that we can regain full access,” shared Farago.
On being asked what would happen if the lounge was taken away or not given back by the end of June, she mentioned that she is uncertain if there would be an alternative space that could be conveyed into the BUGS lounge. She hopes that the department of biology will be supportive of the club as they have continued to be over the years.
Lack of room on campus
While she holds onto the hope of getting the space back, Farago acknowledged that there is a lack of space on campus.
She shared that the math student group used to have a student space in the classroom building which they don’t anymore. The Carillon reached out to Mathematics, Actuarial Science, and Statistics Student Society (MASS) for a comment but did not get a response back.
J-school student space loss
The BUGS student lounge is not the only space in this situation. The J-school student lounge is also dealing with something similar since it reopened in Oct. 2024. During the 2023-24 academic year when the journalism program announced a temporary suspension of future admissions, the J-school student lounge was given to the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). When the program started taking admissions again, the space was never given back to the journalism department.
The Carillon reached out to the current head of the department, Mitch Diamantopoulos, for a comment. Diamantopoulos explained that he did not know as much about what happened between the J-school and the university regarding the former student lounge given that the change happened while he was away on vacation. He does recognise the importance of having a dedicated student lounge space.
“I agree that it’s important for students in specific programs to have a place to gather, which is why many departments have designated student lounge space.” Diamantopoulos stated via an email.
Diamantopoulos mentioned that he has started conversations with CTL neighbours to see if there could be a reasonable compromise but the conversation has not moved forward so far. The journalism department has proposed room AH105.15 as an alternative accommodation for journalism students for the time being.
J-school students’ response
Third year J-school students, Dalyn Chuckry and Katie Flath, expressed their frustrations about the lack of designated space for the department to the Carillon.
“In the moment, I can understand why it made sense just where the program was at [and stuff like that], and going forward, they were uncertain about the future as to if they wanted to reopen the program. So, I understand wanting to repurpose that space. However, now that they’ve reopened for a couple years, there’s a serious student base,” said Chuckry.
He highlighted that the journalism program is growing and stated that the J-school has had the highest ever enrollment numbers this year and “is only showing signs of continuing to grow.” He thinks that for this reason, the students deserve the space back.
Chuckry also mentioned that many journalism students have taken matters into their own hands to make an effort to start a journalism student association. Setting up the association, however, has been difficult since the collapse of the University of Regina Students’ Union (URSU).
Flath, on the other hand, expressed that not only is it important to have a space for meetings but to also have a space where journalism students can go to create something together as a faculty. She added that the space would make the students together in the department closer and unified. Both Flath and Chuckry acknowledged the alternative space that was offered to the department is not a place where they would want to hang out. They elaborated that the thermostat in the room is broken, constantly cranked to high temperatures which makes it not the best space to sit and work in.
University’s response
We reached out to the Facilities Management and the Space Allocation Committee (SAC) for comments and were redirected to Mindy Ellis, the senior public affairs strategist.
“I wanted to note that decisions regarding faculty-designated spaces are made by individual faculties and are not managed by Facilities Management,” said Ellis in an email response.
Ellis followed up with the faculty of science and informed the Carillon that BUGS asked to share their student-club space with a few graduate students in mathematics and statistics until May 2026 to accommodate a series of space reassignments within the faculty of science. In May, the graduate students in mathematics and statistics will move to other areas within science, and then BUGS will return to the sole occupancy of their lounge in June.
In a follow-up email to Ellis, we inquired about the J-school student lounge. She responded that when the U of R assigned the space in the Administrative Humanities building to CTL, the previous J-school lounge was also included in this arrangement and that the space falls into the responsibility and control of CTL. We reached out to CTL for a comment but did not receive a response.
