Kiera McGuire
Editor-in-Chief
One of the first things students say when they meet someone here is, “where are you living this year?” For this academic year, I would say a lot of us got pretty lucky: most dorms have air conditioning, a modern elevator and closet space. As someone who’s lived in a nice dorm hall for two years now, it’s easy to forget where I used to be. But sometimes I see reminders of it, and all the memories I had in the past creep back up. And then I realize that living in a nice place now doesn’t excuse what I went through previously.
I will be the first to say that I try to find the positives in a situation. How lucky am I to be in a place like Wooster, receiving higher education and living in a community of people my age? This may be my final year having the opportunity to live in a community of students, and I should look back on these past four years with fondness. However, one of my years here may always be associated with a poor mental state and limited joy: my sophomore year living in Holden Hall.
I would like to say that my sophomore year was not marked by my living situation, but that would be a lie. Having a clean and safe place to sleep while in college is absolutely necessary, and Holden did not provide these requirements. We all know that Wooster is a popular place for bats to go during migration season – and we may be aware that the bats found sanctuary inside the largest dorm on campus. I thought it was ironic that my first day in Holden was marked by multiple bat sightings: in trash cans, bathrooms and hallways. How fitting that the dorm with the reputation of being home to more bats than people had bats around every corner? This stopped being amusing to me on my second night, when I heard a bat slam into my door. And on day three, when I got a text that a bat was stuck in my bathroom. And later that month, when I ran away from a bat in the common room.
Bats weren’t the only issue, however. I had constant bee infestations in the fall semester, and centipedes were attracted to the entire dorm. The layout of the bathroom was not ideal for multiple people to use at once, so I often walked to different floors just to take a shower or go to the restroom. The knob on my room heater burned off, so we kept the window open for quite a few days in order to cool down in February. The elevator did not work half the time due to residents leaving the door to the freight open, so when I had mobility constraints, I had to put myself through more pain walking up and down the stairs.
I stayed out as late as I could just to avoid going into my room, climbing into bed and shining a flashlight on my mattress to make sure no insects decided to take a slumber under my blankets. I remember a few times I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare I had about a bat climbing through the heater and flying around my room. The scariest part was that this isn’t unfeasible.
I do want to take a moment and say that when I asked for help, I received it. John Reynolds, director of residence life, came into my room to help with the bee situation. I often shared my Holden woes with other students and professors, who sympathized or offered emotional support, which was all I could ask for in this situation. I will also admit that some of my issues with Holden were not safety or accessibility concerns, but simply annoyance and general uncleanliness, which makes sense due to how old the building is. (I mean really, the carpet won’t be clean no matter how many times you scrub, and I understand that.)
My point in all this is that we shouldn’t have had to worry about the safety of our living situation on top of typical college activities when the college requires us to live on campus.
I’m glad Holden is closed this year. I think it needed to happen sooner rather than later. There are so many good things about this school, things that I started to forget. That dorm hall really messed me up, though, and that’s not something I will forget anytime soon.
