For over a year and a half, the idea of the Dive being host to a pub has been controversially discussed and debated. With recent results from SurveyMonkey, Student Senate is making Dive renovations a priority.  Although the possibility of constructing and operating an on-campus pub does not seem likely, there has been explicit cause for some renovation.

“At this point, nothing is set in stone,” Student Senate Co-President and Senior Political Science Major Jen Fox said. “There are rumors across campus about what’s going to happen to the Dive but there are so many ideas that there’s actually not much to know.”

Currently, funding for renovation depends entirely on priority and what students would like to see happen. Ideas about how the Dive will be renovated are still up for debate.

“We’re not going to narrow anything down until we know what’s possible,” Fox said. “Not enough has developed in the last two months to narrow plans down, but this survey was a step in the right direction.”

According to the survey, the Dive, which is intended to be a common student space, is utilized far less than one might expect.

“People will use it when something is scheduled or if it’s Friday night,” Co-President of Student Senate and Senior Classics and Political Science Major Nick Prince said.

Instead of being a social gathering point, the Dive, in contrast, seems to be a last resort for most students.

“In older times, the Dive was said to be this hoppin’ place, but it’s not like that anymore. It’s not the student space that everyone goes to.”

The idea of having an on-campus pub first surfaced a year and a half ago when Matt Olson and Derek Holm served as co-presidents in Student Senate during the 2010-2011 school year. At the time, they were inspired by St. John’s University’s own on-campus pub.  Olson and Holm discussed the possibility at length to no avail.

“The project never got off the ground,” Prince said. “As Jen and I talked to administration, it became clear that a full bar wasn’t going to happen.”

In the survey results, students were open to having a pub on campus, but opposed to a full bar. In regard to having alcohol on campus, the results of the survey indicated that students were split nearly half and half on serving alcohol at all.

The main question that would move Dive renovations forward pertains to what kind of space students want to see. For a while now, the Dive has been a meeting place for clubs and organizations, a place to do homework as well as a place to dance and let loose.

There is concern, however, for what it is currently being used for, especially since it seems the entire space is not being used to its full potential.

“Most students have said they want a lounge area, some want a place to drink, others a place to eat,” Prince said. “But what we really have to ask is how are we going to address these wants? We’re very early in the preliminary stages and still trying to narrow the possibilities down to only a couple things. Ideas consisted of a bar or restaurant area, but what about the TV area? The whole Dive is very compartmentalized right now, and we’re trying to find a way to unify the full space.”

The survey, sent out via email, received 710 responses. The results alone consist of 135 pages, with eight pages filled entirely with graphs and the rest of the pages filled with individual responses.

“We’re excited that people were so enthusiastic and that says a lot about students’ desire to see change,” Fox said. “As the project goes forth, we’ll continue to find student input and inform students what is actually going on.”

If you have any other comments, concerns or questions, both Nick and Jen would love to hear student feedback at foxprince@gustavus.edu.