Berry mega-complex could be in works

Students add touches of their own

Berry College students will soon have more to look forward to than attending classes on the 26,000-acre campus.

A class in the Business School at Berry College is in the pre-planning stages of a student mega-complex located at the Emery Barns, which could break ground in 2009. The mega-complex plans call for two dormitory buildings and the refurbishing of the Emery Barns, which could be turned into a student hangout and recreation center.

Under the direction of Debbie Heida, vice president of student affairs and enrollment, and Paula Englis, who instructs the small business management class at Berry, students took the planning project to heart.

Leaving the dorm’s style and capacity to the builders, the class formed a group known as “Pimp My Barn” this past Spring to create an atmosphere that would be more conducive to recreation in the refurbishing of the barns, which were donated to the college by Mrs. Thomas Emery in 1915.

Future site of the proposed student center scheduled
to break ground in 2009.
Photo courtesy Berry College

The plans include billiard and ping pong tables, televisions, a café, a sports bar and a stage complete with light and sound accompanied by comfortable furnishings. A 20-seat movie theater is planned for the upper level of the barn, while the outdoor landscape is slated for a barbecue grill and patio area.

Heida said she developed this idea with a mission in mind: she wants to create spaces that draw students together with the atmosphere of late night ambiance.

“I would like to see a place on campus that has a stage, lights and good sound for the students,” said Heida.

The Pimp My Barn group, headed by Hal McCool, Samantha Watkins, Helen Preston and Eric Cone, not only want to leave a legacy behind when they graduate in the spring of 2008, but their main concern is to incorporate the ideas and opinions of Berry students in accordance with their planning.

“The most recent survey has the students voting for the barns to first be a coffee house and sports bar and secondly be a stage or nightclub,” said McCool.

Legacy
According to surveys and information gathered at a recent forum, a main concern of the student body is to keep the barn as natural as possible. In agreement with this idea, the Pimp My Barn group discussed making the café out of the old wood in the barn.

Although the majority of the financial planning has yet to be nailed down, that will not stop the dreams and aspirations of Berry College students. With the same fortitude on which Martha Berry stood, her students now march along the same path that leads through the “Gate of Opportunity.”

{L. L. M.}