The Backroom Café of Pavilion XI is dimly lit and usually empty. Imagine it transformed into a coffee bar featuring live student bands, and decorated with student art. The Student Arts Committee is now working to make this vision a reality.
The newly created Student Arts Committee has begun efforts to increase students' awareness and exposure to art at the University, including the revamping of the Backroom Café.
The Committee, chaired by fourth-year College student Adam Popp, wants to redecorate the Backroom Café with University students' art instead of the album covers that are presently hanging on the walls. They also want to tune the piano, get the coffee bar working and make the Café a place for student bands to play and gain exposure.
Popp said one of the Committee's ideas is to have a student string quartet play during certain times of the day for students who want to study with coffee and classical music.
"A lot of things that go on, like student performances, often go unnoticed," he said. "The Backroom Café is a way student artists can get seen a little more."
Committee members said they are trying to promote an arts culture at the University.
"The University's previous underestimation of the importance of the arts to the academic environment has kept it from being a top 10 school, but all that's changing," Popp said.
The Committee also is planning to hold a weekend event called "art explosion," which will be held during a weekend next year and will be filled with musical and dramatic performances and art shows.
Christie Amberman, Student Council Chief of Staff, and Student Council President Taz Turner helped create the Committee.
The Student Arts Committee will be working with the 2020 Arts Commission that was created last year by University President John T. Casteen III to plan for the future of the arts at the University.
"We want to make the sure the arts keep progressing and not get left behind by the progression of the science and technology departments," Turner said.
As a Council Subcommittee, the Committee will receive partial funding from Council, Amberman said.
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