The Current moves to the lower library
Staff look forward to a cleaner and safer location on campus
The American River Current staff is moving locations from the portables to the lower library at American River College, during the Fall semester of 2021, though classes remain online currently, staff will return to campus when it is announced by the Los Rios Community College District that it is safe to do so. (Photo by Lorraine Barron)
After working out of the portables since Jan. 2018, the Current has been given a new room in the lower library and will be moving there when the class resumes on-ground.
According to Rachel Leibrock, a journalism professor and adviser for the Current, the change is much-needed.
“This is a safer environment and provides better accommodations for the paper,” Leibrock said. “The old room was located next to the parking lot and was not a secure location.”
For several years the room shared space with other classes in the Liberal Arts building. At the start of the spring 2018 semester, the Current moved to the Portable Village.
There were several complications when it came to using the portables to house the Current.
“Due to the location of the portables being next to the parking lot, it made it an unsafe location,” Leibrock said. “[One semester] we had a situation with an upset student. It gave easy access to the rooms.”
The library is located in the center of campus. To get to the new location of the Current students must go through the door to the library, then each new room for the Current has its own door.
Oden Taylor, a student worker for the Current, and journalism and English major, feels a sense of security as well because the classroom is no longer next to the parking lot, where there is no fencing to control access to the portables.
“I feel safer in the new location due to it being located in the center of campus,” he says.
This new location will offer not only a safer environment for students and staff but also a cleaner one.
“There was no organization in the portables. When the staff would come in, there would be garbage left by other classes, and equipment [that had been] messed with,” Taylor said.
In the portables, there were also temperature control issues, which Leibrock says meant the environment was either too cold or too hot.
The new location will now offer three rooms. A classroom, an office, and a newsroom lab. The Current will have a secure place to store equipment, and there will be updated furnishings in the space.
For now the Current is operating not on campus due to COVID-19. To send tips and stories to the Current, send an email to [email protected].
