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Campus - 18.09.2016 - 00:00 

Going down the pub to study

Gastro St.Gallen, St.Gallen’s Municipal Utilities and the University of St.Gallen will launch a pilot project at the start of the 2016 Autumn Semester. The Goldene Leuen and Bierfalken pubs will provide learning places for students. The two pubs will be equipped with free WLAN and sockets for the purpose.

19 September 2016. The St.Gallen publicans will offer an additional service, make a small contribution to the alleviation of the HSG’s shortage of space and ensure more life and turnover in St.Gallen’s pubs. The idea, which has been named "Edu Room", is the result of an exchange between the committee of Gastro St.Gallen and the University Management. "In the course of this, we also talked about the HSG’s shortage of space, particularly with regard to learning places for students," says Walter Tobler, Cantonal Chairman of Gastro St.Gallen. "Since many of our town pubs have spare capacities in the mornings, we jointly arrived at this idea."

Learning place and WLAN for the purchase of food and/or drink

In this two-year pilot project, the Goldene Leuen and Bierfalken will be the initial pubs to offer students a place for learning or for group work between 8.30 and 11.30 a.m. For this purpose, the two pubs will be equipped with free WLAN and sockets. The St.Gallen Municipal Utilities have set up an access point for the WLAN that will be required. The costs of the one-off installation are borne by the HSG’s IT Services. Students can use this service free of charge but have to purchase at least one item of food or drink in the pub.

The new service will not be reserved for HSG students alone. All the guests, as well as students from the University of Applied Sciences and the University of Teacher Education, will be able to profit from the free WLAN.

Extension of the service?

If the service becomes popular with students and the publicans are satisfied with the additional footprint, more pubs should be able to join the idea after the conclusion of the pilot project. "If further publicans are interested and this service can be funded on a larger scale, we’ll be glad to lend a hand," says Walter Tobler.

Irrespective of whether the project will be continued in two years or not, archetypal St.Gallen citizen and co-initiator Kuno Schedler is pleased with the uncomplicated solution anyway: "If this service is used, it doesn’t only benefit our students and the restaurants involved but will also bring the HSG and the city a bit closer together again."

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