Coffman Union is a great place for University students to hang out, relax and eat lunch. Because it is such a popular place to go, it is always jam-packed with students. Coffman Union could deal with its space issues better.

First of all, how often is it that a person who just bought lunch can sit down and eat it right away? It’s definitely a struggle at lunchtime to find a table to sit at. Most of the tables seat four people, yet most students come alone to Coffman Union between classes. This makes it so one student often takes up a space that is meant to serve four.

Not that there aren’t occasions when people will sit with a person they don’t know. This is fine and a nice way for students to meet new people. However, many people do not ask strangers if they can sit down. They either stand outside the pay lines and scope out the situation, or they start to wander around other parts of Coffman, looking for a spot to sit. Many are very well trained at spying out who is getting ready to leave a table before they even get up. A student then sprints over as one is leaving, sits down and resumes the single-person trend.

Coffman Union could fix this easily. Bar-style single seating along one wall, or around the entire room, would provide much more adequate space for single eaters. This would help students who are grabbing a quick lunch between classes, and also students who want to eat but have studying to do and don’t want as many distractions. Singles would be able to sit down immediately, and the mere 4 feet of space the bar would take up would leave plenty of room for the original tables.

Bar-style seating at Coffman is a simple solution for a simple problem that affects many students and faculty members at the University.