When’s the last time you went inside Old Main? I’ve been in there just once earlier this year. I never went on any campus tours so I’d not had a reason — which had me thinking: Why have I never been there? Isn’t it supposed to be the heart of campus? So I took myself on a brief tour. It was a somewhat awkward experience. I certainly didn’t feel like I belonged in there, strolling about, criss-crossing by the reception desk on the first floor.

What about the Arizona State Museum building? It’s surely one of the grandest features of campus with its high arching windows, and it served as the University of Arizona’s main library before the new one was opened in 1977.

But I’ve also only been there once, and my visit was limited to the few rooms on the first floor where the museum is housed. I bet you’ve never been up to the large room with those grand windows, which once was the library’s main reading room. Now it houses the museum’s archives. What business does anybody have up there? Indeed, you won’t be allowed to just wander up there without reason, if only to see it.

It’s really a shame that we can’t make better use of those buildings. Old Main is naturally an iconic fixture, and a source of historic pride. Even I — an oft irreverent out-of-stater — have developed a fondness for it after last year reading that book from the bookstore, “Lamp in the Desert.” But other than tours, I don’t even know what the place is used for.

There’s a room that looks like a cafeteria you can sit in but other than that, I really don’t know. Why shouldn’t it actually be the heart of campus and not just a relic or offices? Put in a coffee shop and some couches, place high tables and stools, so you can see over the fence, unlike with the current rocking chairs along that wonderful and wasted veranda. It would be a great place to stop by during the day between classes.

And even for tours, wouldn’t it be great to be able to show prospective students not just a husk, but a heart — a true center of student life? The building is certainly deserving of such a status. It’s nice, it stands out and of course there is the history.

Similarly for the old library that is now the Arizona State Museum. Not only has it been forgotten as a relic, but it has been, itself, repurposed for the storage of relics! Surely, something better could be done with that main reading room. It would need some fixing up, but that’s actually being done right now — it’s going to be 2 years before the museum is open due to repairs and renovations. 

If you ask me, this sounds like the perfect opportunity to take all of the archaeology items out of there, and put the space to more general use. Maybe it wouldn’t be good to just move the contents of Albert B. Weaver Science-Engineering Library into the museum, but it would certainly be nice. There are possibilities. Find a way to give it back to the students.

Campus could use a few nice places to hang out. The Student Union Memorial Center and UA Main Library are fine and do fulfill their intended purposes. The Main Library is really great for storing millions of print volumes, and the SUMC is a nice place for a food court and some large rooms for events. But neither has anything like the Old Main veranda or the Arizona State Musuem’s reading room.

Old Main, too, of course, is right at the heart of campus, and the old library has got a great lawn that’s much better than the Mall by a number of measures. I love to sit and read a book there. University Boulevard is right there also — it’s prime real estate!

It’s not just a matter of these two buildings being especially promising; there are also really no great existing alternatives. Again, the SUMC and Main Library are fine, but they can feel like facilities and not hubs. Libraries, for one, are libraries. The SUMC, well, I find its design somewhat bewildering. It is a strange layout with rooms and tables scattered about haphazardly. The most coherent and satisfying feature there is a conference room on the fourth floor. Where else is there? The Bear Down Gymnasium? The Albert B. Weaver Science-Engineering Library?

Students have no business in all the best buildings on campus with seemingly the most potential, and these spots are certainly not part of the everyday experience. That includes the buildings with the richest history. There are other more notable buildings that are mostly newer, like the Grand Challenges Research Building —  again, I’ve explored in there, but I certainly had no business doing so.

Now, the Grand Challenges Research Building is not a good candidate for this; it’s rightly built and used for research. I’m not saying we turn over the Arizona Sands Club to the students. But these two buildings — Old Main and the Arizona State Museum— should have never been removed from the student experience, and I don’t think it should be too difficult to give them back.

Follow the Daily Wildcat on Instagram and Twitter/X

Andrew Tsai is a Sophomore studying political science at the University of Arizona. When politics becomes enervating, he alternates between reading voraciously or watching X-Files. He enjoys physics and philosophy as well.