For an otherwise attractive tourist town, Ashland falls flat with weekend nightlife.
The administration at Southern Oregon University has heard the student’s cries of boredom, and are suggesting an interesting solution of building a coffee shop by day and a pub by night.
In a student wide email last week, SOU’s Senior Information Officer Brad Christ introduced the idea to garner student support, saying “We’ve heard from many students that there are few entertainment options available in and around the university, especially on nights and weekends. There are also few places for students, faculty and staff to gather and mingle in a non-formal setting.”
This pub is intended to be the answer to all that. It would accept those under 21, and be a source of new, non-pressured social interaction between students and professors.
According to Christ, the responses from students and faculty alike were overwhelmingly positive.
Of the 1000 plus student that responded to the survey included in an email earlier this term, the students were “generally very favorable” in the idea of a pub on campus. Christ also felt a warm response from the faculty, stating that they were “generally very favorable to the idea” as well.
Some students are responding with skepticism, like Kelly Binion, a junior who answered the idea saying “[there are] So many better ways to spend the money. Like new desks in Taylor.”
Some students are worried about where the money for this new project will come from, and suspect it will be from their own tuition.
Helen Thorlough, a sophomore at SOU stated that “Only half the students are over 21. We already have like three coffee shops on campus. Its like that Rec Center, we’re already paying for things we won’t get to see the benefit of. “
While some students see the proposed pub as a potential cash cow for the university, Jesse Scales, a senior at SOU said “I feel really [positive], it’s a good idea, because entertainment downtown is limited, especially at night, especially for those under 21. This will be a good source of income for the school, probably more than they expect.”
While students and faculty take their positions on either side of this idea, Christ reminds us that right now it is just that, an idea. At the moment the pub is a concept more than a formal proposal, a possible solution for Ashland’s quiet night life.
