Faculty, students, and alumni – we are excited to welcome you back to campus for another wonderful fall semester! As you trickle back into our beloved Hill Center, you may notice that a quiet change has taken place. 

Starting Fall 2024, we're officially renaming “The CAVE” to “Coding & Social Lounge.” This is in tune with our recent updates to the space, focusing on increasing inclusivity, adding explicit purpose, and signaling the new era of great things to come.

For the past 13 years, the CAVE has been more than just a place to study or relax; it has been a cornerstone of our community, a space where students can gather, collaborate, and build lasting memories (in addition to helping on CS assignments). However, as with all good things in this world, the quality of the CAVE took a turn for the worse; COVID-19 caused a disconnect in the social community that was essential to the CAVE. Facing the truth, there have been many valid complaints about the quality of the CAVE.

In these past few years, there has been a concerted effort to address these concerns regarding the CAVE from both the student and faculty levels. Whether it's house staff cleaning up icky stains on the floor, the iLab team building an in-house ticketing system, or Jamie spending countless hours drafting new plans for success, everyone has been hard at work. Hopefully, you will see the current fruits of our labor when you step into the CAVE this fall! 

While the visual change is the most stunning, we aim to re-evaluate the CAVE’s purpose and whether it functions responsively. A loose working mantra of the CAVE that we’ve used in our vision-planning has been: 

  • We gather Rutgers Computer Science students
  • To hear diverse perspectives, learn new ideas, and build together
  • So that students are professionally & technically prepared for their careers, with a network to rely on after graduation

As we’ve progressed further and further, a large concern has been the storied name of the CAVE depends on just that: stories. In general, it is very difficult to succinctly describe the goal of the CAVE, and the mysterious name lends no help. While we’re blessed that the CAVE is truly a one-of-a-kind facility, this means we also face a large hurdle in getting students and parents to understand it, and to recognize its value. We’ve also found that having an unintentional masculine-connotated name such as “The CAVE” has damaged perceptions, especially with female and non-binary identifying members of our community. 

When planning, our biggest priority has been a name that: 

  • Conveys clearly identifiable purpose for the space
  • Is a blank slate to help with the refresh
  • Is easily memorable

For us, “Coding & Social Lounge” (CSL) successfully meets all these criteria, so we’ve adopted it as our new name! It may be sad to see “The CAVE” go, but we promise to hold it deeply in our hearts in exchange for your support in our new name as the Coding & Social Lounge (CSL).

 

Credit: Rushd Syed / Jamie Liao