Livingston Student Center’s new entertainment hangout teaches students management skills
Customized Rutgers-themed 13-foot shuffleboard table? Check
Skeeball, air hockey, mini-golf, two pool tables? Check, check, check, and check.
The new RutgersZone at the Livingston Student Center is decked out for fun, but don’t let that fool you. There’s also serious learning going on here.
“We’re very proud of the space, but we’re just as proud that we’re providing a learning experience for our crew and student managers. It’s important that they get real-world skills in this tough job market.”
The speaker is Matthew Ferguson, who wears several hats at Rutgers. A 2005 graduate of University College who received his master’s in city and regional planning from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in 2008, Ferguson is an assistant director of student life and also general manager of The Zone.
The Zone made its “soft” debut last April in time for Rutgers Day, officially opening for business this semester. The sports-themed event space features arcade and boardwalk games, a digital juke box, and a 13-foot neon sports ticker flashing college and pro-ball scores.
Like its manager, the Zone is multi-functional. Primarily, it offers students from all campuses a space to meet friends and de-stress between classes and at night.
But it also attracts growing numbers of people from inside and outside the Rutgers community seeking an unusual venue for birthday parties, corporate happy hours, bachelor and graduation parties – even the occasional Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebration and first Communion party.
“We do a personalized package for each event,” says Ferguson. “The Zone is closed to the public during that time, and we work with the hosts to design an experience that best suits their needs."
That might include setting up the outdoor fire pit to grill S’mores, or moving indoors to organize an air hockey tournament or a putting competition with its own custom-designed sound track. “We treat it like a full professional restaurant experience,” he says.
That’s where the 30-person, all-student crew comes in. Working behind the scenes as well as interacting with customers and party planners, they are soaking up those real-world skills in which Ferguson places so much stock.
To prepare them, he arranged for tours and meetings with their professional counterparts at Madison Square Garden and at Dave & Buster’s in New York; organized a training session at an ice cream parlor on Long Beach Island; and provided lessons in food safety, management philosophy, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Rebecca Potts, a senior marketing major at the Rutgers School of Business-Newark and New Brunswick, is parlaying her textbook learning into a campaign to bring the Zone to the widest possible audience, both on and off campus. “In the classroom, I learn theory and business process. This job allows me to be creative, stimulating a different part of my brain,” Potts says.
As one of the Zone’s seven student managers, the Brick native plans and implements a marketing strategy, and she’s using every platform available to get the word out: ads in Targum, promotional tables around campus, social media pages, You Tube videos, and a blog in which her colleagues humorously detail their on-the-job experiences.
The challenge of creating innovative programs falls to Ali Intravatola, a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences who is majoring in public health through the Bloustein School, with a minor in art history.
Tunes on Tuesday, a weekly concert series featuring live music – primarily acoustic, with performances by the occasional electric keyboard or a cappella group – and Wednesday trivia competitions co-sponsored by the Rutgers University Programming Association are a few of the regular events.
Special events. such as a meet-and-greet appearance by members of the New Jersey Devils Hockey team, are also among her responsibilities.
Both women believe the skills they’re honing will serve them well when they enter the job market. “I’ve learned how to manage people in a professional setting, and how to delegate,” Intravatola says. “I’ve also become better at customer service, because I want to create a positive atmosphere for our clients.”
Their efforts seem to be paying off.
“Everybody had a blast,” says Curry Kellaway of Basking Ridge, who hosted a bachelor party for his best friend, Scott Fitzgerald, on October 9.
While looking for a venue that would be suitable for a wide age range – including one teenage groomsman – the mechanic for Pepsi Cola learned about the Zone when he was installing a machine at the Livingston Student Center. The fact that “it wasn’t the normal bachelor party thing” appealed to him.
Kellaway said the staff excelled at engaging the 15 or so guests in an Olympics-style competition featuring basketball, Skeeball and air hockey.
Mary Klinger of New Brunswick, a 1984 Douglass graduate, threw a graduation party at the Zone in May for her daughter, Lauren, and 70 guests, ages 2 to 80. “The place kept everybody occupied,” she recalls. “Between the gaming and the pinballs and the shuffleboard, there was an activity for everybody to do.”
For more information about having an event at the Zone, contact the staff at zone@rci.rutgers.edu.