On Monday, Oct. 21, students gathered in the Old Main fourth floor lounge to provide feedback on the future of the Cultural House (C-House) in a meeting led by Vice President for Student Affairs Kathryn Kay Coquemont and Vice President for Institutional Equity Alina Wong. Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Javier Gutierrez and Planning and Implementation Manager in Student Affairs Jonathan Cardenas also attended.
This meeting comes three and a half weeks after Coquemont and Wong sent a joint email to students announcing two potential temporary locations for the C-House: Grand Cambridge Apartments (GCA) or Summit House. The current structure will be torn down in the summer of 2025 as part of the Comprehensive Campus Plan (CCP).
A meeting on Oct. 10 with students with close ties to the C-House made clear that “Summit House is really the choice for current and former C-House residents,” according to Wong.
Still, going into Monday’s meeting, Coquemont and Wong wanted to double check.
“We’re 99 percent of the way that the C-House will move into Summit House,” Coquemont said near the beginning of the meeting. “Unless this conversation really surprises us, we’re ready to move forward with Summit House.”
After a presentation from Coquemont and Wong, they opened the floor for questions. Students asked several questions, but no one raised opposition.
“No one was like ‘no, you’re getting it wrong.’ So does it feel right that Summit House is where this is moving to?” Coquemont asked at the end of the meeting.
Nods of affirmation finalized the decision: the temporary location for the C-House will be Summit House.
“I think it’s a great location and they’ve made the right decision,” Ryan Connor ’25, the current Resident Assistant (RA) of Summit House, wrote to The Mac Weekly after the meeting. “It’s going to be a great space for the C-House and I’m glad admin took student voices into their decision.”
However, there is still some apprehension.
As Summit House currently houses students during the opposite semester they study away, plans for accommodating those students remain in flux. During the meeting, a student raised this concern, but no staff member provided any details.
“I’m very concerned about how effectively they’re going to move forward with displaced FGLI [first-generation and low income] students in the Summit House,” Richard Rose ’25, co-founder of the First Generation, Low Income Student Union (FSU), said after the meeting.
Currently, students in Summit House are not required to have a meal plan, but it is encouraged since Macalester’s website describes the kitchen as “not set up to accommodate daily meals for all residents.”
According to a handout distributed by FSU before the meeting, six of the 15 current residents of the Summit House are Bonner Scholars, a program targeted to “first-generation college students, Minnesota residents and students who have participated in college access programs,” according to Macalester’s website.
“Are they going to have an option for poor students who need access to places without the meal plan?” Rose asked after the meeting.
Coquemont added that there are opportunities to construct a new space for these students with renovations to several residence halls in the near future as part of the CCP.
However, no administration members present offered any potential options for students living on campus directly before or after study away in the 2025-26 academic year.
“I would like a stronger commitment from admin around where the new space for single-semester students will actually be,” Connor wrote. “I think it’s fairly easy to just say that space will open up, but I want a more firm, written-in commitment or statement.”
Another concern raised during and after the meeting is that Summit House is not currently ADA compliant.
“I want to see concrete, tangible plans for [making the C-House ADA compliant],” Isabella Benjamin-Quintana ’25 said.
Members of the administration made promises, but no guarantees.
“We are really trying to think about ADA compliance and at least if we can get students into the first floor of the space,” Wong said.
Currently, the entrance to Summit House is not ADA accessible, so FSU proposed building a ramp to the entrance. Gutierrez acknowledged this suggestion yet warned of some challenges.
“If you renovate a property up to a certain percentage with the ADA laws, then you have to do a lot more renovation [to make the whole building ADA compliant],” Gutierrez said.
With the construction of townhouses in place of the current language houses in phase three of the CCP (Macalester is currently in phase one), Coquemont mentioned that the C-House may relocate into a townhouse permanently, unless students prefer staying in Summit House. According to Coquemont, the new townhouses will be ADA compliant.
“The possibilities are kind of really open right now, and that is a process that there would also be student voices at the table,” she said.
On Wednesday, Oct. 23, Coquemont and Wong sent an email to students confirming the discussions during the meeting.
“We are happy to share that the Cultural House (C-House) will be moving to the Summit House (1576 Summit Ave.), beginning fall 2025,” Coquemont wrote.
Ella Stern contributed to the reporting for this story.
