By Morgan Goddard, Contributing Writer

As a student at West Liberty University, one of the many things one will hear numerous times is to get involved on campus. One of the easiest ways is to join a club or organization. The university offers a wide array groups to join—anything from Greek life, religious organizations, or special interest groups such as the Women’s Lifting Club.

However, one of the problems that comes with having so many great organizations to join is that sometimes there is not enough room to use for meeting places.

Patrick Henry, Chief of Operations for West Liberty University, talked about the recent problems and possible solutions. “This really is a recent problem. We have a lot of room on campus, but we don’t really have system on how to allocate the rooms to people. Each building has a director, but we don’t have anyone to keep track of scheduling a room when there is no class,” said Henry.

One club on campus that had to deal with the lack of space is the Gaming Club. Club President Kristen Sikorsky explained their dilemma and how she managed it. “The gaming club is known to be notoriously loud,” Sikorsky said. “Though this is all in good fun, we were getting a few strange looks from passerby students while we were situated in the union basement. I felt it was time for a change of pace, and a ‘home’ for our club members.” Apparently though, this was easier said than done.

Sikorsky said, “Getting our own room was an extremely difficult process, not due to individuals not cooperating, but just the sheer number of departments I had to contact. We started out with the mailroom, but the chapel social room which we originally wanted was booked for the rest of the semester during our one evening of club time. From there, I found a seemingly unoccupied room in the basement of main.”

But when Sikorsky inquired about that space, she was first told that it was available, then subsequently she found that it was going to be used by the Learning and Student Development Center (LSDC). So, Sikorsky spoke to Bridgette Dawson of the LSDC.

Sikorsky said, “She (Dawson) was going to use B8 as a computer room, an extension of the study center, but there is no internet plugin down here, so that plan fell through. After contacting campus security to let them know we would be using the room, I finally got the key from Bridgette, and the room was ours.”

“We are working on streamlining the process, and creating a more organized way of scheduling the use of rooms,” said Henry.

So if any group on campus is looking for a room to use for their club or organization to meet at, it isn’t impossible. Anyone can go to maintenance and ask for available space, but finding the space isn’t always an easy solution.