By Adam Dodson/reporter
In front of TR Campus is a state-of-the art clubhouse called the Idea Store.
It’s a meeting place, multi-tasking all at once as an incubator for student discourse, a study nook and a lounge, well-suited for chilling with classmates. The confluence of students discussing a wide range of topics, some scholastic and some not, reverberates throughout the rotunda. The low, murmuring backdrop is the setting for the student clubs and associations that hold their meetings there.
Only five years ago, TR wasn’t a college campus at all. The entire complex was the former home of Radio Shack’s world headquarters. What is now the Idea Store used to be Radio Shack’s showroom, complete with a 4-D theater and a huge digital, circular ticker lining the walls of the rounded two-story entryway.
Eddie Brassart and Cortney Walden of student development services made the transition from the Center for Student Involvement to their new digs in the Idea Store the week before the fall semester began. They provide a forum with an atmosphere designed for students to interact with one another on a more personal level.
“We provide meeting spaces for all of our clubs and organizations,” Brassart said. “They can reserve any of these little spaces downstairs as well as the theater.”
Out of their office, they plan student activities like Welcome Week, Constitution Day and the Club Crawl.
Students can also use a number of large touch-screen computers, a pool table and a foosball table. All amenities are available free of charge with a student ID card.
“Many people have come in here and utilized the space or each other to get through classes,” Walden said. “They form study groups, they stay late with each other and before they didn’t even know each other. Now that we have so many more clubs meeting in here and not throughout the campus, there’s been more interest in clubs and more involvement.”
Oliver Lewis, an officer in the TREE (Trinity River Equality in Education) club, pointed toward the living room area with the TV and couches.
“We constantly use that as a study room and a general meetup room for our club as well,” he said.
In the billiard room, sophomore Aney Leos, Association of Drama and Arts president, said she’s “always here, either working on something for the club or doing a meeting or doing my homework, so I’m literally here all the time.”
She said she uses the theater for the meeting group and the storage room for their crafts.
The student center also plays host to local high school students enrolled in the Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences. The Idea Store offers a forum for future college students to interact with current college students and get a feel for what it’s like at the next level.
Ryan Vo, a senior at TABS, spoke between chess moves. He said he and his friends go to the Idea Store a lot to hang out.
“Sometimes, we actually do some studying,” Vo said.
The Idea Store is located in the rotunda on Belknap Street. It is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday.
