Trotter House slated to reopen with celebration

The William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center was set to reopen Sept. 24 amidst food, games, dance, live performances and film screenings at the Trotter Community Festival.

Facility Manager Edward Burnett gives a tour of the renovated William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center Sept. 22. New audio-visual equipment and furniture on all three floors and in the basement recreation room are among the highlights of the recently completed improvements to the center. It was scheduled to reopen with a community celebration Sept. 24. (Photo by Lin Jones, U-M Photo Services)

Community members had the opportunity to take tours of the newly renovated facility, which was completed as part of several recommendations for improvements made by the Trotter Advisory Council.

E. Royster Harper, vice president for student affairs, charged the council last November to more clearly articulate the vision of the center and to guide the Division of Student Affairs/Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA) in planning for how best to use resources to develop effective multicultural programming.

"This is an excellent opportunity for our campus, as the report outlines a vision and plans to establish a multicultural center that empowers students, faculty and staff to create a more inclusive campus community," Harper says. "This work is important to the University, and we are moving quickly to implement the advisory council's recommendations"

LSA Assistant Dean Evans Young chaired the council, which was made up largely of students and included faculty and staff representation. The council's report is available at: http://mesa.umich.edu.

Recommendations include: identifying long-term multicultural center facility needs, distributing grants for student-initiated diversity education programming, and setting up an ongoing advisory council that will establish mechanisms for gathering community input and feedback on the work of MESA and the center.

"Partnering with University administrators, designers and facility personnel, MESA Director Patricia Aqui Pacania and the MESA and Trotter staff worked hard over the summer to ensure that the facility would be open this fall to serve students," Dean of Students Susan Eklund says. "We simply didn't want students to be inconvenienced by having the center offline for an extended period of time."

Improvements, which essentially are complete, include: expanded student organizations spaces, a second-floor assembly area, flexible conference rooms and media library, Ethernet access on every floor, and wireless access throughout the facility. Changes also include renovated and newly installed men and women's restrooms; handicap accessible and unisex restrooms; new multimedia equipment, including a plasma television, DVD/VCR players, a new music system, and multimedia projectors and screens; new lounge and office furniture; and an updated décor, including lighting, color schemes, carpet and flooring, and window treatments.

"The new changes within the Trotter Multicultural Center are a major step forward towards having a multicultural center that meets the needs of students of color and the University community as a whole," Pacania says.

A schedule of community forums for feedback on the council's report will be available on the MESA Web site. Questions regarding the report should be directed to Pacania at pmaqui@umich.edu or (734) 763-9044.