Once a meeting room in the Alumni Memorial Union, Marquette faculty and staff have a new space to decompress and relax, known as the “Faculty and Staff Oasis.” The relaxation area, in AMU 368, opened Feb. 16.
In the reimagined space, Marquette faculty and staff can scan their IDs to access a zero-gravity massage chair, oil diffuser, yoga mats, kinetic wall art and a salt lamp.
“We really wanted to make sure that we can have a space where faculty and staff can go and take time to collect themselves,” Maddie Makinster, AMU event planner, said.
Makinster worked on the room conversion with Jen Reed, former director of the AMU. The two worked to determine what spaces in the AMU were the least used and settled on a third-floor meeting room as the eventual destination.
The inspiration for the project came from Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee, a community wellness course Makinster took in partnership with the university. As part of the course, participants learned about trauma-informed workspaces and were encouraged to implement a related project.
“We talked in our SWIM course about employee burnout and we just want to prevent that in as many ways as we can,” Makinster said.
Makinster said between the course ending in Jan. 2025 and the space opening in Feb. 2026, she and Reed worked with the Division of Belonging and Student Affairs for funding. In the four-month trial run preceding the official opening, Makinster said, around 200 people swiped into the oasis.
Faculty and staff who enter the space can swipe a slider outside the door to read “in use.” Upon preparing to exit the room, users are asked to limit their trips to 30 minutes at a time and keep the space clean.
“Faculty and staff have very hard jobs,” Makinster said. “There are a lot of wellness spaces for our students on campus, but there aren’t very many wellness spaces for just faculty and staff.”
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at [email protected].
