Dal’s Grad House bowing out after 23 years as student oasis

The university doesn’t want to invest the funds needed to keep the campus pub running

After more than three decades as a gathering place for students and faculty, Dal’s Grad House is headed to a new location. (Photo: Peter Cudmore)

After climbing the wooden steps and walking through the bar's side door, it is hard not to feel relaxed.

Chairs surround small tables and music fills the background as students talk with their friends. The carpet on the uneven floors is well worn, having soaked up countless beers spilled over the years.

This is the Grad House, run by the Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students and open to everyone.

But after serving students since 1975, its days are numbered. The building needs almost $750,000 in repairs, Dalhousie University's facilities management department estimated in 2007. The association does not have the money and the university is unwilling to invest the funds needed.

The association leases the Grad House from Dalhousie. There are already plans to use the site - located across from the Killam Library and beside the student union building - for new university projects, says the association's president Chris Giacomantonio.

The Grad House is a place where students come to unwind, shoot some pool with the slightly bent cues or to recharge before heading to another class.

"It is a home away from home," says Mark Jurkovic, the bar's manager. He says the staff tries to accommodate students to create an atmosphere where everyone is welcome.

Patrons agree.

"I like it because it is one of a few places on campus that is not corporate," says Kaleigh Trace as she sips her coffee and works on her thesis at a large window overlooking Le Marchant Street.

Dalhousie has assured Giacomantonio the spirit of the Grad House will live on. As early as next September, the association could be opening a new bar at 1252/1254 Le Marchant St., almost directly across the street.

The new building is larger but needs work to convert it into a bar with food services. The proposed building is divided into flats. It needs more than $450,000 to make sustainable renovations, says Giacomantonio.

The Grad House is more than just a building where students and professors can relax. It is also the place where grad students come to meet and discuss campus societies, research and assisting professors with undergrad students.

"It is important for them to have a space that they can call their own. That they can administer the affairs of, and they can organize in and they can meet in and they do not have to answer to anyone else for," says Giacomantonio.

Students Alexis Michael and Brandon Holternan hope the Grad House retains its charm when it moves.

"The concept of the Grad House should definitely stay," says Michael.

Holternan does not want another Grawood, one of Dalhousie's other campus bars, which he describes as an "ill-designed German discotheque" after a 2002 renovation.

"We need a Grad House," Holternan says.

For now, students can still enjoy listening to Bob Marley and drinking $3.50 scotches on "Scotch Tuesdays" in the Grad House's familiar surroundings.

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