The university needs to make rehearsal spaces for arts groups on campus easier to access. Many groups on campus say they struggle to find useable rehearsal spaces, and that the system for booking the rooms is inefficient and doesn’t suit their needs.
Theatre groups have to practice in rooms where desks are bolted to the floor, dance groups resort to dancing in the atrium, and sound-proof music rooms are often only available to music students.
The current system requires groups to contact the student affairs online to book a room at least 10 days in advance. However, the system often struggles to match students with rooms that suit their needs, and is poorly advertised so that many groups don’t even know it exists. They instead look for random empty classrooms around campus when they need them.
Bigger spaces, like the theatres in Southam Hall and the Minto Bell Theatre, have to be booked separately with Conference Services. They can cost up to a couple hundred dollars, which is far outside the budgets of most campus groups, especially if they’d like to use them more than once.
For a school with a music program, and several large, active performance groups, Carleton isn’t making it easy for students to have a creative outlet. If Carleton wants to support creativity on its campus, it needs to make spaces easier to book, make sure they meet the right specifications for the groups’ needs, and invest in more, better rehearsal spaces
