Humanities majors throughout the Hopkins community are currently in mourning. The antithesis of a storybook Rapunzel, we have been unceremoniously tossed out of our high tower. And the resulting splat has not been pretty.
While the renovation of Gilman Hall is much needed and much anticipated, it has left many departments without a home. This has had an effect on the lives of both students and teachers alike.
Professors with their offices previously in Gilman have been transported south for a long winter. As stated and debated in previous News-Letter articles, many offices have been relocated to Dell House on 29th and N. Charles. While not completely out of reach, this new location can be quite the walk from many locations on and around campus, making it more difficult to meet with professors during office hours.
This inaccessibility has several people questioning the Dell House decision. In fact, when trying to ask someone if it is difficult to meet with a professor there, I was unable to find anyone who had felt it worth the trouble. "The problem with the Dell House is that it is so far out of my natural orbit," junior Sarah Sabshon said. "I can no longer just swing by a professor's office to hand in an assignment, ask a question, or just say hello."
Professorial offices aren't the only things to be relocated and dislocated due to Gilman's close. Many classes which would normally meet in the building are now scattered around the campus and beyond.
The Writing Seminars courses are feeling the blow especially hard after becoming accustomed to years in Gilman 500. Courses once held just below the chiming bells are now held anywhere and everywhere. Stifled creativity in the windowless tombs of Dunning are the least of all worries, however.
Some writing courses, as well as English courses and a few other subjects, are now held in the most random of places. These range anywhere from the basement of Wolman to the meeting room in Charles Commons, to three blocks down in Dell House itself. "The most absurd thing about having everything moved to Dell House is that professors with classes 15 minutes apart end up having to push class back by a few minutes just so they can get to class on time," junior Jamie MacGillis said. "I'm in the same boat as these hurried professors. On Thursdays I had to practically jog from Bloomberg to Dell House in 10 minutes until my professor pushed class back by five minutes."
These off-campus locations are far from the ideal. For starters, many humanities courses meet in smaller groups which work best with a somewhat round-table setting. This facilitates discussion and even an intimacy amongst the students and professors (in the cleanest sense of the word). While Dell House provides conference rooms with large tables, several of the other random meeting spots don't even provide desks, forcing students to sit in simple chairs and write on their laps.
Lack of a King Arthur-esque table isn't the only drawback to these scattered locales. Some are just completely inadequate learning environments. For instance, the Wolman Basement Meeting Room is one of the noisiest places on campus. A defunct door alarm goes off every two minutes and traffic at the mailroom results in many freshmen loudly conversing two feet away from the "classroom."
"My Readings in Contemporary Fiction class was meeting in the Wolman basement originally, and we had to move it to Dell House ?- which is obviously inconvenient - because there were alarms going off all the time. It was impossible to concentrate; It's really not a suitable location for classes to be held," Writing Seminars major Alexandra Watson said.
Charles Commons as a classroom has its cons as well. "Personally, I'm glad they're renovating Gilman. It needed it," junior Julia Dischell said, "but it would be great to be able to get to my classes without having to sign into residence halls."
Dell House has the obvious disadvantage of being far away, especially since most courses being held there are for upperclassmen, many of whom live on the entirely opposite side of campus, a good 30 minutes away on foot.
While most people agree that these relocations are not the end of the world, the Gilman renovations have caused much minor distress, especially due to the fact that most of the students suffering the consequences will no longer be at Hopkins to reap the benefits once the project is finished.
Many students have noted the injustice in the fact that it seems to be mostly the upper-level courses that are most displaced. Since Gilman won't be complete for another two years or so, that means these juniors and seniors will be gone before they get a chance to utilize these advancements. Therefore, their lives are in a mini-upheaval to benefit the next "generation" of students.
True, most of this is a bit overly dramatic. It's really not too big of a deal to have to walk an extra few minutes to class or to not have the optimal classroom to fit your needs. However, it is still a concern amongst many humanities students.
