Save the UCD Common Room!

The Common Room is a basic facility located in a building in which a large number of staff work and teach. Replacing it with something that costs 14 million, and which is supposed to pay back those costs over twenty years, means a shift to a high cost for-profit model that is entirely inappropriate for a university setting. This is what happens when a university prioritises leadership training over an investing in books, labs, faculty, and students.

I spent time in the UCD Common Room on several occasions during the week that I visited back in February to work with a UCD colleague. I envied the space and wished we had something like it at my own institution. It was comfortable, fast, inexpensive, and ideal for both work-related discussions and more relaxing interactions. I can't imagine why UCD would want to get rid of that kind of place.

Common room should be retained. Important to have a social/break space for staff, particularly those who do not have access to any other facilities

Comfortable informal spaces are essential to academic life.

The Common Room must not be closed. To close the above displays at the very least a complete lack of understanding and concern for the welfare of staff etc.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde

It's a grand place, no need to close it

Please do not close this important part of the university

13 million could build a lot of student accommodation for the students on the street today. Instead UCD would rather entertain and dine the multinationals. Where are our priorites?

Do the right thing.

Be an awful shame to see it go, has to stay..

There is no good teason to close the Common Room. This is a venerable and much-loved UCD institution and would be greatly missed by staff of all grades.

As a former student and staff member I heartily support the campaign to save the common room. It is a vital space for building networks, meeting friends, and building and maintaining a collegial environment. This is important not only for academic growth but for the morale and wellbeing of its members.

As a former student (undergrad and postgrad) I appreciate the staff’s need for this space.

The closing down of the common room is a disgrace. The building of the Alumni club is a joke by Deeks. Funding could have been put in to renovate the common room and the arts building, allowing for a fresher facility. Putting people who have been working for years out of the job and taking away a place that has hosted numerous launches, parties, debates, discussions of research and the sharing of interests across subjects is disgraceful.

I believe that the Common Room serves an important function within UCD.

We need to preserve democratic public spaces.

The new university club cannot match the integral role the Common Room plays as a collegial space for staff and postgrad students. Why can't both be accommodated and serve different purposes.

As a foreign member of staff in UCD, the Common Room made me feel welcome, and introduced me to my first friends here. Losing it will rip out UCD's living heart, to be replaced by an artificial device of glass and chrome. The Common Room represents all that is good about the Irish and Irish society.

Every academic institution has to have a common room!