R.8: Approval of Big Red Barn Rejuvenation Proposal

Whereas, the Big Red Barn is the student center for over 6000 graduate and professional students here at Cornell University;

Whereas, the Big Red Barn has limited space and therefore cannot meet the demands of all graduate and professional students at once;

Whereas, members of the Big Red Barn staff have written a proposal to build an extension of the Big Red Barn (see attached proposal) which will be presented to the Deans of the Graduate School as well as the Office of Alumni Affairs & Development to ask for donations for the project;

Whereas, this proposal seeks to better accommodate all graduate and professional students at the Big Red Barn.

Be it therefore resolved that the GPSA endorses the attached proposal to expand the Big Red Barn;

Be it finally resolved that this resolution be sent to Kris Corda, Director of the Big Red Barn; Brenda Wickes, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School; Kent Hubbell, Dean of Students; and Alison Power, Dean of the Graduate School.

Respectfully submitted,
Brian Michael Forster
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly Biological Sciences Representative
Vice President for Operations / Operations & Staffing Committee Chair

David P. Walden
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly Johnson School of Management Representative
Appropriations Committee Chair

Jason Beekman
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly Law School Representative

Sarah Petraitis
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly Vet School Representative

Michiei Sho
Assistant Manager for Operations, Big Red Barn

Big Red Barn Rejuvenation Project

Reasons for Our Proposal
Barn is too small for the demand of the Grad & professional (G/P) students. As of October, 2009, there are 6,702 graduate and professional students on the Ithaca campus of Cornell (4,689 graduate students, 957 Johnson School students, 689 Law School students, and 367 Vet School students)^ . The Barn can only hold 165. We are bursting at the seams.

The demand for the Barn space far exceeds the supply — we are booked almost every day throughout the academic year and sometimes have 2 or 3 events in one day. We host over 320 programs on average in the 30 weeks, during the academic year. (hours: 2–10pm M-TH, all day from Fr at 8pm — Su night).

The Barn’s central location on campus is crucial to G/P students who do not have the time to go somewhere else to socialize. It is crucial for G/P students to have a place to go and socialize outside of their office/lab and classroom. This location allows them to stop in between classes, before they go home or on their way into campus.

Proposal for Extending the Barn —
We would like to build out to include what is now the patio and the BBQ pit. Make this section of the Barn two story to join with the upstairs mezzanine. The downstairs space would connect to the Main Space where pellet stove is with the capability to have dividers so the space can be used as one large room or 2 −3 smaller ones. The area now called the Main space could be furnished with lounge furniture and used as a gathering place (maybe even a coffee lounge) for G/P students. After the extension, part of the upstairs could be divided into office space for the Director, programmer, assistant dean for student Life, GPSA, and space for conference /meeting rooms. We will also introduce dance lesson space, workshop space, etc.

If possible, we would like to build our new Big Red Barn in-house as much as possible. In order to achieve this, we are going to promote a building design competition for the Barn. We specify criteria and groups of G/P students can compete designs accordingly under the supervision of Architecture/Engineering professors.

To Make Our Proposal Comes True
In order to make our proposal possible, we would like to ask for donations from current G/P students and our G/P alumni. It would be best to promote that the Big Red Barn is built by ourselves for ourselves. We as G/P students from the past, current, and the future would be so proud knowing that the design of the new Big Red Barn was made by our G/P students and our donations made all of this possible.

• ^ The Office of Institutional Research and Planning (in the Cornell University Division of Planning and Budget)