What does a $150,000 game room look like? What would students like to see in it?

Those are the questions that ASCC government is asking.

ASCC President Saul Lopez said, “I’m telling students ‘help me and the [ASCC] senate figure out how to spend this because we have $150,000 and we’d really like your student input.’”

He is asking students to take a survey to determine how to spend the $150,000 budget that has been approved for the rebuild, remodel, and improvement of the game room.

As it stands, the game room has over 10 arcade-type games and billiard tables available for student use.

Whether the money is spent bringing in new console-type games like the Wii or Playstation, or if it is transformed into something similar to a Multicultural Center depends on the answers provided on the survey.

The survey was made available to students on Monday, Oct. 24 and will remain open until Thursday, Nov. 24.

The survey is a key part of making changes to the game room.

Lopez explained that although the idea of changing the game room was one that former ASCC President Eddie De La Rosa, Student Trustee Karen Patron and himself agreed to take the necessary steps to get the budget for renovations.

The process of getting the budget approved by the Budget and Finance Committee, and all branches of government was one that required time and stipulations.

Patron said, “ASCC government branches have been supportive of the idea. The remodeling of the game room has been an ongoing conversation and now we are finally taking action.”

Lopez elaborated on the process for getting the funding for the remodeling.

He said, “I made the motion in the [Budget and Finance Committee] and everyone was receptive, except it was very inclined to [say] ‘there needs to be senate approval for multiple processes.’ Before it gets approved, there has to be drawings, there has to be an itemization of what we’re buying, there has to be cost for all of that and it has to total depending on how much it costs, it has to be less than $150,000, which is what the account has.”

How to spend the budget, what items to buy, and ultimately what becomes of the space is something that Lopez as ASCC President can decide on and present to senate as his own cause to champion.

However, he believes that would be the wrong course of action to take for a space that should be used by every student on campus.

He said, “I couldn’t make the decision by myself. I can’t just be like ‘I want to renovate the game room. I want to make it a Cross Cultural Center’ […] it wouldn’t be right. What would be right is to go and ask the students what they would like.”

He is proud to have stepped back from imposing his views on what the space should become and has created a survey that would be unbiased and allow students to choose and express what they want the space to be.

“I want to make sure that the students just know there’s a survey out there, […] it’s important that the students pick, and what we use is the student input because as student leaders we’re elected to represent them.”

Patron has her own views on what the space should be.

She said, “I have been advocating for the game room to become a Multicultural Center since I ran for this [Student Trustee] position. During the summer President Lopez and myself went to visit different Cross Cultural Centers in order to get different perspectives of what they are used for.

“Every campus we have been to has their own version of a Multicultural Center that fits the needs of their students on campus.”

She added, “As a first generation undocumented student, my hope is to create a Multicultural Center that would include all of our identity groups on campus. Regardless of what is to become of the space, I want it to be a place where students feel welcomed and have an environment in which they can work collaboratively on initiatives that would benefit the students on campus.”

The students on campus like Biology major Jasmine Ortega and Fabiola Nepomuceno, Nursing major, visit the game room once a day and play on the billiard tables.

Ortega knew about the survey and had taken it herself, but she was not aware of the budget that was available to make the changes.

She said, “I think it’s interesting that they are upgrading it and adding more [game] variety.”

Game consoles like the Wii and Xbox are what she is looking forward to.

Nepomuceno’s request is to give the game room more space.

She said, “Make it bigger a lot of people come at one time and it gets full.”