In last Monday’s press release, WPI administration clarified that the I&E room in Foisie Innovation Studio will be closed to the public starting on September 15th, 2019. WPI Officials sent the statement in hopes that students wouldn’t check the “other” folder in their Outlook inbox. Unfortunately, they did.
“Every time I walk into the I&E room, I always see students collaborating on projects or homework. This is unacceptable.” says a WPI administrator, “While we understand this may be frustrating, it was never meant to be an open study space.”
The $49 million, 78,000-square-foot open study space, which opened in 2018, boasted a minimalistic open floor plan in order to foster a collaborative environment for all WPI students. “Foisie’s unique architectural design is ripe for division,” says the administrator, “There’s so much open space to put up walls. It just makes sense.”
Still, WPI students are unconvinced that this segmentation of study space is a good thing, especially with the school’s growing class size. Currently, there are 30 seats in the innovation studio divided among 10 tables, for a student body of 6,642. Closing off the I&E room reduces these numbers to 4 and 1, respectively.
WPI assuaged these concerns in the press release. “Not only will more seats for studying be available in the makerspace,” stated the press release, “but we will also be installing bandsaws, sanders, and grinders to provide calming white noise.”
“I guess Foisie is gonna be a little… noisy” said a WPI Administrator as he chuckled and twirled his mustache. The press release further described that the room will be repurposed for students with start ups, “It just makes sense to reserve space for them, I mean we love innovation and everything but we’re really hoping they’ll be successful and donate money back to us.”
A particularly baffling section of the statement read, “It is of utmost importance that the I&E room becomes the incubator. Its large windows allow massive amounts of sunlight to enter the room, simulating a mother’s embrace, and provides enough heat for the eggs to develop and hatch.” We here at the Institute aren’t sure if they’re thinking of the right kind of incubator.
At press time, your roommate and their shitty startup can be seen creating a counter petition to this one, that you should totally sign, here: https://www.change.org/p/worcester-polytechnic-institute-foisie-space-for-students
