Campus Auxiliary Services announced last week that Fusion Market (pictured above) will close at the conclusion of the spring 2020 semester (Xavier Delcid/ photo editor).
In the last edition of The Lamron, published on Oct. 25, Campus Auxiliary Services announced renovations that include closing Fusion Market and expanding Starbucks into Fusion’s current space. The campus community has mixed reactions regarding the changes to come for the fall of 2020.
According to the article published last week, the contract that CAS has with Starbucks requires the college to renovate the space, accommodating for new technologies and offerings. Pamela Connor, interim co-executive director for CAS, said that analysis of student feedback was the driving force for renovation and the timing to renew their contract with Starbucks provided an opportunity for change.
In response, political science major junior Sean Nanos created a petition on Geneseo Speaks to “Keep Fusion Open.” The petition has more than 100 signatures.
“I started the petition because I feel like this is another incident of CAS not really listening to the students,” Nanos said. “The way I felt when I read the article was that CAS was doing this for their own good and tried to make it seem like it was doing it for the students.”
Nanos explained that the high number of students that signed the petition reflects that CAS “didn’t ask that many students” and the decision is not a “popular one.”
Senior Starbucks employee Zainab Tahir said that Starbucks needed the larger space. Although she is a senior, she believes the change will be beneficial to accommodate workers and student needs in the future.
“Whenever I’m working, there are a lot of things that need to be happening behind the scene that maybe people don’t realize,” Tahir said. “You’re just constantly getting in each other’s way. The bigger space helps to avoid some of those problems. I think it will help increase overall efficiency.”
Despite the 100 student signatures on Nano’s petition to “Keep Fusion open,” some students on campus are excited about the Starbucks expansion, such as sociology major junior Macaire Lisicki.
“I hope that this change will make the lines shorter and all around decrease the amount of traffic in the Union,” Lisicki said.
Economics and mathematics double major junior Mick Welch also said that the Starbucks expansion “makes sense” and could be an opportunity to expand online orders and study spaces.
“I think that the online ordering bar section of Starbucks will be really helpful in decreasing traffic since so many people go to Starbucks,” Welch said. “I hope that the space will also offer some variation in study space to accommodate for students because I am always looking for different places to study besides the library.”
Lisicki and Welch corroborated in expressing their hopes that the Fusion workers will not lose their jobs.
Junior Fusion employee Rachel Arauz said, in the wake of these changes, she is unclear about where she will be working in the future.
“No one told me about what was going on with Fusion until recently, that Friday when The Lamron ran their article,” Arauz said. “I kind of understand where they are coming from with it because Starbucks is popular on campus and it would make sense to offer them a bigger space, but I feel like there’s another way of doing it.”
Arauz explained that Fusion is a part of her college career, and she does not want to lose it.
“Fusion has so much history for me because I’ve been there for two years now,” Arauz said. “I’ve made connections with my coworkers and with the full-time staff. Starting over would be a whole new process for me.” She continued, “I’ve heard that Fusion workers are thinking about moving to other dining halls. I want to fight it but if anything can’t be done, especially because they have a contract with Starbucks, I think I might just move.”
Tahir highlighted the “hot food options” of the Fusion menu and the importance of having these choices.
“I know they’re opening a Smart Market where Starbucks used to be, but there’s value in stir fry and all the other hot food options Fusion has,” Tahir said.
Arauz said closing Fusion is “like taking away our school culture” and hopes that there could be a way to keep the dining hall open.
According to Connor, the Fusion menu will be integrated into Mary Jemison to accommodate for those who enjoyed Fusion’s offerings.
Nanos said he is concerned over the lack of clarity in The Lamron article about the future of MJ.
“In the article, it mentioned that the options from Fusion would be integrated into MJ, but I think that would only create a bigger problem because lines at MJ are already long,” Nanos said. “The article hinted at making MJ’s hours longer, but it didn’t give a definite answer. I think that would just make the problem of waiting on lines at MJ worse.”
Welch agrees with Nanos, and said he hopes CAS extends the MJ hours to accommodate for the lack of dinner options.
“I do think that they definitely need to extend the MJ hours because otherwise there will only be two places to eat dinner on campus, both of which are predominately buffet style,” Welch said.
Overall, Tahir said she hopes renovations and new menus on campus will be for the better.
“I’m not sure how exactly they’re planning on accommodating for that. I think what I heard is they’re going to spread those options out over campus,” Tahir said. “I just hope that they have a good idea of how to plan that out so people don’t feel the losses. I hope it’s better than what people expect.”