Students no longer need to trek to Carruthers Hall to handle administrative matters with Student Financial Services and other offices. In an effort to expand the accessibility of student services, "Hoo's In", a satellite office of Carruthers Hall, opened in Newcomb Hall last week.
"It's something that's always been wanted," said Trudy Taylor, manager of student accounts and Hoo's In.
Newcomb Hall Director Bill Ashby, who proposed the allocation of the former STA Travel office space, agreed.
"It's been on our radar screen for probably about three or four years," he said. "It was just a matter of timing. We don't have an abundance of square feet on this part of Grounds."
Ashby noted that studies conducted in 2002 and 2004 by both a program consulting firm and an architectural team indicated that student support services were the most pressing needs on Grounds.
According to Taylor, the office will offer students the ability to make payments, apply for emergency loans, drop off documents, talk with a Financial Aid counselor or Student Accounts Counselor or review their account.
"It's a version of Carruthers Hall here," Taylor said. Students "can conduct business here instead of going all the way to Carruthers."
Currently, however, the office cannot file documents containing a student's ID number. According to Taylor, this mainly applies to documents such as promissory notes.
"We're being very careful with anything with a student ID on it and not transporting documents" between office locations, Hubbard said.
According to Taylor and Hubbard, the location of the office is one of its main drawing points.
First-year College student Dionna Ali said she agreed the location is convenient.
"Especially as a first year, taking the bus to Carruthers is not fun," she said. "It's a hassle and is inconvenient."
According to Hubbard, the satellite office is currently being run on a trial basis.
"Newcomb Hall is revenue space and charges rent," she said.
Hoo's In took up the paid lease vacated by STA Travel and will remain in the office for about six months on this trial basis, Hubbard said.
"How long we stay and what we do really depends on what the students need," Hubbard said.
According to Taylor and Hubbard, discussion concerning the future use of the space has already begun to take place with other University services, such as ITC and the University Registrar.
Currently, Hoo's In is asking students that come into the office to fill out a survey regarding student services.
"We definitely want to hear from students," Ashby said. "We don't want to try to guess as to what would be the best list of services to offer. We would like students to just drop in and to tell us what they'd like us to do here."
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