Greg Griffin, the director of the brand new and long-awaited Lawrence University campus center, disclosed to me in a recent interview that the campus center will be opening next week.
All right, so Greg Griffin didn’t actually tell me that the campus center is opening next week. However, I did have an interview with the new campus center director to find out a little more about the man who will be overseeing it all.
Greg Griffin has a long history with Lawrence University. Graduating from Lawrence in 1980 with a major in psychology, Griffin went to grad school at the University of Wisconsin and, interestingly enough, also worked as a residence hall director at Lawrence for Trever and Colman. Griffin’s wife was also a residence hall director at the same time, and their daughter, who recently graduated from Lawrence with an art history major, was born while they were both hall directors here.
After his time as a residence hall director, Griffin went on to work for eight years at Wabash College, a men’s university in Indiana, and then took a position at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as the Dean of Campus life. Griffin spent ten years at Coe College before happening upon the position for campus director at Lawrence while he was still employed there.
“I never expected to be back here” he said, “but it was great timing.” Griffin accepted the position without looking at any other jobs, and arrived at Lawrence on July 28.
Since then, he has been working with project manager Lynn Hagee to begin to solidify the details of the new building, which will actually be officially opening in September of 2009.
“I don’t just want to take a Downer, or a Lucinda’s, or the coffeehouse and just plop them inside of the new building,” said Griffin. Rather, some of his ideas include reworking meal plans to give students more meal flexibility, and using the full service cinema in the building to show Friday or Saturday midnight movies.
Within the next few months, Griffin said, he will be holding several student forums to collect opinions on everything from study lounge furniture preference to the best way to design a new meal plan. Though the campus center project will certainly be keeping him busy, hopefully Griffin, an avid fan of alternative and jazz music, will be able to experience some of the wonderful talents of the students for whom the center is being created.
Lawrence Welcomes…
