Moodie Atallah

English 101
Proposal
5/27/2016

The Underground Caf

Place. Such a simple term. One might think that such a concept would
be relatively easy to define and describe. Yet Place could easily be one of
the most terms in human geography
Lynn A. Staeheli

Introduction:
Sometimes I need a place where I can have a sip of a hot beverage in
front of a relaxing and mind-blowing view to ease my thoughts and sail away
from reality for a bit. Sometimes I need a place where I can do my homework
and studies in between classes so that I can feel prepared for what the
professor has in store for us in the lecture. Sometimes I need a place where I
can go to with friends and meet new people in a friendly environment where
everyone is kind and caring. Sometimes I need a place where I can
experience and listen to the talented voices of Bellinghams students and
local artist. What place pops up in your thoughts when you hear someone
say these? I asked a student I approached on campus and her name was
Megan she responded by saying The Underground Coffeehouse immediately
came to my thoughts. The place that always comes to my mind when I hear
someone say one of these phrases is the Underground Caf, as mentioned in
the epigraph Place is a simple term but does not have the same meaning
each time it is used, a place can be somewhere that has solutions for
problems like these and not only these types of problems as it also deals
with the difficulties that todays society is dealing with from social problems
to personal emotions. The Underground Caf has helped me a lot with
problems like these as it also has helped me feel more comfortable to the
surroundings around me and the culture that is within the community today,
I am going to telling you about the many problems us students face and give
you the ways that the Underground Caf can offer solutions to us.

Every place has its flaws:

But first of all this place is not the perfect place as in my opinion I have been
told and I have witnessed myself, there seems to be a couple of problems
which need to be solved sooner rather than later. From all the problems and
complaints I have heard from the people who go there, I have always been
notified of two of them constantly being brought to subject, students tend to
complain about the place not having enough seating when events are held
which at the same time leads to some of the students getting furious and
complaining to the hardworking staff members even though they have no
hand in a solution to this problem. The other most heard problems comes
from band performers as they start to argue that the stage is not a suitable
size for other performers who have multiple instruments with sometimes
performers walking around the stage and falling off while some of these
performers sustained injuries due to this problem. I will explain why these
problems need to be resolved and offer a proposal of a solution. What causes
the problem of lack space is mostly the events which attracts lots of students
to go, they often go there for the experience and to gather with friends but
cause of the lack of space, they cant find a place to sit which leads them to
feeling angry and storming out of the place unpleased.

Nowhere to sit:

The first problem that I hear most talk

about is not having a place to sit
during any live event held at the
underground caf which has the
people complaining to the employees
and demanding them to bring more
furniture in place, the problem has
grown a lot recently due to the
popularity of live music events has
become. The way I see this problem
being solved is to offer the solution of
making the events come with a fee
even it has to be for a small charge
and the money being raised for more
furniture to add while also clearing out
some space in the area to add them around, such as the events that are held
at the multipurpose room near the Viking Union, the AS of Western
(Associated Students) hold events every week for a fee of ten to fifteen
dollars per event, while they are trying to raise this money for better food at
the cafeteria and donating it to
charity. This solution may make
some of the students stop coming
and they might also complain. I
think that this way can benefit the
people who ask for more seats so
that they do not complain about the
seating to the staff.

The other voice of a performer:

The stage not having enough room
for the performers instruments plus
their movement around is the other
problem I hear mostly from
whoever is coming off the stage. In some of the situations the performers
have not found space, leading them to fall of the stage by accident and have
the feeling of being embarrassed and sometimes getting injured. In my
opinion this problem needs a solution but the solution I have in mind may
lead to the underground caf being closed for a while. The solution I have
found for this place, is to expand the area to more wider and suitable
environment. Similar to the Carver Academic Renovation which is the
expansion of the carver gym on campus, this renovation is due because of

the high demand of students for programs such as Pre-Physical Therapy and
Pre-Health Care. Also, expanding it can help with the problem of seat
capacity with the expansion leading to creating more space for furniture and
places to sit. But, where would they get the money? Easy, as I mentioned
earlier that the events that are held at the place should come with a fee
especially when a popular event or well-known local Bellinghams band and
artists perform, when all of this is done the leftover money can be donated to
charity of all sorts for good cause.

Get rid of loneliness:

Moving on to the problems that I see society struggles with and is a huge
problem in this community which is loneliness with this problems expanding
to many different problems including depression. According to a study by
Uger Ozdemir and Tarik Tuncay that had a comprising 721 college students
participating in the study which led to the result of 60.2% of the participants
experienced loneliness and most of them have felt depression and the
thought of suicide has come to mind. This problem is not easy to deal with as
it can lead to terrible decisions that may affect others with the emotions of
loved ones and one of the worst decisions this problem leads to is the use of
drugs that affect the life of the user and will make the person overuse drugs
while also do violent things. I think that the underground can help the
problem of feeling lonely. In which way you ask? Well, in many ways I may
say with one of them being the enjoyment of viewing the Bellingham Bay but
this is not the only solution to this problem, in my opinion the main solution
and factor of the underground caf is the people that hang around there as
they are very kind and caring of others in a way that they simply approach
you and start a random chat with you.
Conclusion:
To conclude this proposal, I would like to say that the underground caf is
one the most unique places on campus that contains a wide variety of things
to do. According to the ASProductions on their website the Underground
Coffeehouse is a favorite spot for coffee, community, and comfy couches. We
host free events for students and community members on weeknights,
including specialty programs on Monday (trivia, jazz jam sessions, karaoke,
and more), open mic on Tuesday, the concert series on Wednesday, and AS
club sponsored events on Thursday.. For this place to have problems such
as seating capacity and not enough having enough space on stage to move
around is not really being cared much about but is being complained a lot
about, I propose to the Manager of the underground caf and president of
Western Washington to look into these problems with the solutions I have

suggested while I also think they would not find a better solution. While I also
discussed one of the most common problems in our society today, the
feeling of being lonely with the idea of expressing and proposing this to the
people who cannot get over this feeling by telling them they can overcome
this situation at the underground caf. The place where most of the students
who go there share one anothers thoughts with the traits of being kind and
caring for whatever the person has to say and with my personal experience
from the amount of times I have visited this place, I can say that it can affect
a persons mood from feeling sad to having the best time of your life and I
can also say that there are people who feel safe and comfortable meeting
friends there who are really close to them. That is why I think that the
problems that come up there should be resolved in a matter of time.

References
Staeheli, Lynn A. "Place." A Companion to Political Geography. By
John A. Agnew,
Katharyne Mitchell, and Gerard Toal.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. N. pag. Print.

Hong, Megan. "What Place Comes to Mind?" Personal interview. 13

May 2016.

Daneshmandi, Karimeh. "Associated Students of Western

Washington
University." Associated Students
Underground Coffeehouse Home. Western Washington
University, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 May 2016.
Roberts, R. (2010, August 1). WWU Capital Project Proposal. Retrieved
May 27, 2016, from Western Washington University,
http://www.wwu.edu/wwuarchitect/pages/cb/documents/2011_13
_proposals/03_carver_academic_renovation/WWU%20Capital
%20Project%20Proposal%20-%20Carver%20Academic
%20Renovation%20-%202011-13.pdf
zdemir, Ugur, and Tarik Tuncay. Correlates of Loneliness Among
University Students. 2. (2008): n.pag. Web. 27 May 2016.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572161/