Kagin Commons

The old dining hall at Macalester College, no longer in service and being remodeled into a computer lab, offices, and ballroom. In January 2001 when the new Ruth Stricker-Dayton Campus Center opened, dining services were moved there and Kagin was closed for renovations. Before that, however, Kagin served "food" ranging in quality from mediocre to horrific. I don't need to go into detail here about bad college dining hall food. Nonetheless, they did have many options: a meat line, a vegetarian line, a grill line (with veggie burgers, hamburgers, and such things as grilled cheese sandwiches and grilled chicken, an extensive salad bar, cereal at all meals, a pasta bar, and a frozen yogurt (fro-yo) machine. Eating well in Kagin took creativity, but it was possible. The dining services in the new Campus Center are, luckily, quite improved.

The new Macalester dining hall and campus center is technically called "Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center", but naturally that's too much of a mouthful for most Macalester students. Many of the "old-school" students who have been around since the original Kagin still call it "Kagin." Some call it "New Kagin," which is strange since "Old Kagin" was smashed to bits (mostly between 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning) recently and a new building, actually still called Kagin Commons, built in its place, and thus the new Kagin is thus referred to frequently as "Old Kagin."

Old Kagin, or as it's properly now called, Kagin Commons, now indeed houses a computer lab and a ballroom, and also the Community Service Office, the Internship Office, and the Career Development center.