However, if demand is high, space may become reservation-only. The student org offices will move to the “IdeaHub,” a planned co-working space that will be available to all 1500 student organizations. While creating office space for student organizations, the renovations will expand Counseling and Psychological Services and move some administrative offices to the third and fourth floors. The University currently boasts over 1,500 student organizations, but fewer than 80 have office space, all of which is located on the third and fourth floors of the Union. In total, more than 350 students, 500 alumni and almost 200 staff offered input.ĭriven by the results of those outreach efforts, the administration is seeking to expand space for student organizations in the Union, said Susan Pile, senior director of University Unions and Auxiliary Services, who has been active in planning the renovations. In planning the new and hopefully improved Union, the University conducted surveys, town halls, intercept interviews and more to gauge campus and alumni opinion on what the Union should be. When the Union closes for renovations this spring, the University will sink more than $85 million into the project over two years. That’s why I question the Union renovations slated to begin this April, which will not only erase the pool hall entirely but also devastate the community surrounding it. Though far and few in between, there is a network of individuals on campus who don’t just love billiards but love the billiards hall. OK, so it’s not football, but what pool lacks in aggression and physicality, it makes up for tenfold in strategy and tact. That tournament is held every year, and it’s bliss for those of us who crave the intensity of calmly tapping safety shots for two hours patiently awaiting a chance to run the table in one foul devastating swoop. I lost, we shook hands and they asked me where the parties were. While my fraternity brothers were doing what they do, I was locked in a heated game of nine-ball until midnight against a couple of students from Carnegie Mellon University. My freshman year, the UMTPC was the weekend of Halloween. In fact, U-M hosts the largest college pool tournament in the country, the University of Michigan Team Pool Championships. It wasn’t long before I was on the club pool team. This is my refuge, my paradise and my home. The green-felted nine-foot Brunswick tables put the ratty seven-footer my dad taught me to play on to shame. It is where I would unwind after a long day and where I would bring people to understand me a bit more. I spent hours every week –– probably every day –– in this room my freshman year. As this academic year ends, so too will the lingering life of the historic billiards hall. However, one room on the second floor remains virtually untouched, frozen in time and displaying the Union’s winding story. Over the century since, these amenities have slowly been replaced by a computer lab, Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, fast food chains and other facilities that fill today’s Union.
Few people know that when the Michigan Union was erected in 1919, it boasted a bowling alley, bar, swimming pool, barber shop, hotel rooms and much more.
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