Student center brings new 'edge' to WU
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:24PM By Alison Angel
angela@thejohnsonian.com
With the opening of the DiGiorgio Campus Center comes a new era of entertainment for Winthrop students.
The massive three-story building is quickly becoming the newest center for students to gather.
Home to a new Starbucks and a food court offering a wide variety of eats, the center also brings to campus Winthrop’s first ever movie theater.
The new DiGiorgio theater screened its first movie, “Iron Man 2,” Tuesday night with a follow-up show Wednesday to celebrate Welcome Week and the opening of the theater.
More than 150 students turned out to experience the new theater for the first-ever screening.
Boyd Jones, university programs director, works with the DiGiorgio Student Union to help produce the shows and movies screened in the new campus center.
Jones said the presence of a projection booth in the new theater makes it easy to screen movies. He is excited because the room can also be used for other purposes.
“I would have been happy if it had just been a movie theater, but the fact is that it is a multi-function room that we can utilize for many other things,” Jones said. “I think we’re going to utilize that room in many ways in addition to movies to make it a room that everybody on campus will hopefully benefit from.”
Above and right: Students watch “Ironman 2,” the first movie previewed in the new DiGiorgio Center movie theater on August 24. Movies are shown Wednesdays and Saturdays for $2. Wednesday nights are documentaries and Saturday nights are recently released films. Photos by Kathleen Brown • brownk@thejohnsonian.com
Jones said the new theater will be used to house everything from a variety of lectures to spoken word poets.
The movies shown in the theater are just another opportunity to reach Winthrop students in addition to the other entertainment the university has to offer, he said.
“We’ll still be doing things like bands, coffeehouse acts, lectures, poets, but adding films is just another chance for people to be entertained,” Jones said. “But also we’ll be showing documentaries that will be very educational.”
Some students on campus weren’t aware that the new campus center offered a movie theater.
Marquita Killian, senior family and consumer sciences major, said she didn’t know there was a theater, but thought it was a good idea.
Although she said the price of the movie may discourage her from coming out.
“We college students, you know, we’ve got to budget our money right. If it was free, I would go,” Killian said. “Two dollars isn’t bad, though.”
The theater, seating up to 224 people, will offer showings twice a week on a variety of topics.
Mike Rapay, assistant campus programs director, plays a major role in the new theater.
He makes sure there is a diverse variety of films screened and directly oversees the DiGiorgio Student Union’s movie committee.
Rapay said he thinks the theater has been well-received based on the opening film screenings.
“I do think it has gotten a really great response so far,” Rapay said. “As with any new building or any new anything, we’re finding out ways that we can improve it as we go along.”
The movie theater will screen films on Wednesday and Saturday nights throughout the fall and spring semesters.
