The Center for Global Citizenship is a space for all students, faculty and staff, and it’s being renovated after going 12 years without any updates. As of August 2023, big plans have been in the works to revamp the CGC into the modern global hub it has the potential to be. 

This renovation is an effort by international students of Saint Louis University to become more comfortable with being in a new country and still feel connected to their home country. 

“I think it all comes back to having a significant increase in our population of international students,” said Bobby Wassel, director of the Center for Social Action. “So we are renovating in an effort to make that space welcoming, more inviting, inclusive to everyone, but especially to the new students that aren’t quite comfortable yet with living in a different country.”

Luella Loseille, assistant director of the Center for Global Citizenship, has been front and center in this project. She has helped the revampment to gear more towards the international students and the cross cultural organizations at SLU. 

Loseille asked international students specifically what they wanted to see more out of the CGC in regards to cultural diversity and representation. 

“[The international students and cultural organizations] utilize the space most often whether it’s for their events or otherwise,” Loseille said. “What are some additional touches they want to see in the CGC that not only reflect who they are and their culture but also are beneficial to them as students to utilize the space?” 

A special addition added for the purpose of including students in the revampment is an opportunity for students to submit ideas for three different murals that will be put in the CGC. 

Three artists will be chosen based on their mural ideas for these topics: Occupy SLU, freedom and social justice in the U.S and global citizenship. As of Oct. 12, 2023 students are open to submit their ideas until Nov. 10. 

This development has been in the works for quite some time and should be completed in 2024. 

“This is something that was a long time coming, CGC has not been worked on in probably 12-13 years since it was originally revamped the first time in 2011 or so, as the rest of campus became modernized, the CGC never did,” Loseille said. 

The CGC planning stages were unveiled to the public on Oct. 10, 2023. This unveiling included a buffet of ethnic food and different cultural music. Many different people at SLU were invited to attend, from international students to faculty that work in the building. 

Luella Loseille spoke to the public about the new art, furniture, technology, and restaurants that are planned to be added to the CGC in the future. 

Loseille said that a welcome desk has been recently installed and the University hopes the positions at the desk will be filled by some of SLU’s international undergraduate and graduate students. 

“As a part of this initiative, we recognize an issue that some of our international students are currently facing is the lack of opportunities for on-campus jobs. So we hope to have this position filled by a few of our international students so they have that opportunity to be there,” Loseille said. 

The development has already entered its first stage. The first part of this plan includes adding in more furniture, different artwork and photographs to make the space more versatile and welcoming. 

Staff members at the Division of Diversity and Center for Social Action said they are excited about this revampment. 

“I have seen them hanging flags inside the building, they have flags outside but they aren’t quite as noticeable so they’re hanging flags as decorations from countries where we have a higher percentage of students, which is pretty cool,” Wassel said. 

The flags that will be shown in the CGC will be the flags of the top 14 representative countries that attend SLU. At the moment the top three flags include The United States, China and Korea. 

On top of the new decor, there are plans that are still in the works for the CGC, specifically the re-installment of an international cafe with plans of collaborating with some local St. Louis restaurants to have a different rotation of foods in the cafe. 

“In the past, there used to be an international cafe that was housed in the CGC, and again this is an idea and nothing to be confirmed, there is an idea of potentially having another food location on campus be housed in the CGC,” Loseille said. “It could be in the shape of a pop-up, we are working really closely with some local restaurants and maybe we would have them do little pop-ups every once in a while.”

Even though physical changes are being made to the CGC, the message of the building and the organizations that are housed there will still stand to be true. “You don’t have to be international to be a global citizen, whether you live here in the States or not, we can all work together on how we can be better humans who can work together to solve and address the problems at hand. We still want the CGC to be a space for that, a space for our future thinkers, for our future leaders,” Loseille said.