It’s Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. The DuBois library closed an hour and a half ago; the Amherst College library closed half an hour ago; and Rao’s has finally, kindly, ushered me out in order to close shop. I have two political science exams and three papers due in the upcoming week, and I live in the dorms.
Most of the weekend has been sacrificed to studying, re-reading, and writing. I say ‘sacrificed’ only because it would have been fun to see the final hockey game of the season, taken time out for a movie, or had a beer with a friend. But, alas, the work to hour ratio is disturbingly disjointed this week, and the lessons I truly enjoy are now anxiety-producing.
Since I live in the dorms, most of this work has taken place outside of my dorm room -a single in Van Meter Hall. Lugging books and a laptop, I’ve nestled into coves in every library, coffee house and bookshop this side of the Connecticut River just to get some peace and quiet.
“Stop,” you say. “Did you just admit to having a single?”
Why, yes, I did, however a single with sophomores blasting music to the tune of beirut on either side of me and across the hallway does little -even with ear plugs-to promote focus.
Furthermore, a single dorm room is fantastic in the interest of privacy, personal pursuits, and one’s sanity, but there is nothing more compelling than a room full of other scholars undertaking studious pursuits to motivate oneself. This is not to say the single is not a beautiful thing, cause it is. My single has allowed me on most weeknights to study uninterrupted whenever I like, for however long I like, in comfort. Long gone are the nights spent yawning under fluorescent lighting in the hallway so as not to wake my sleeping roommate. However, come weekends, or times like the wee hours of the morning, when focus seems futile and only the collective resilience of a group hard at work can keep me going on my own path, a single doesn’t cut it.
Van Meter, like many other dorms, has no available quiet space for residents to study in. The singular “lounge” is in fact the entryway lobby where the communal television and vending machines are also found. The basement area is used as a stage for concerts, shows, meetings, yoga … you name it, four of seven days a week. There is no space designated as a study zone, and no computer lab (an amenity several dormitories boast). There is a single classroom, located in the southern wing, accessed by a key signed out with the cluster office. The classroom has old, decrepit couches, and few if any tables; it looks more like a basement storage area than a welcoming study space. If the cluster office is not open, this room is not available for students to study in; the hours that the classroom is available coincide with library hours and thus does not extend a students possible study timetable.
On either side of Van Meter sits Commonwealth College honors living areas: Butterfield and Orchard Hill. Butterfield, once a rogue abode for anarchist heathens, has been renovated and redesigned as Commonwealth College’s freshman living program. Non-freshman honors students, however, reside in the hall in singles as academic peer advisors or as resident assistants. Butterfield is quieter than Van Meter, has no influx of loud performances, and is equipped with several study lounges.
The two sibling buildings share a cluster office. Due to this fact, Butterfield students can access Van Meter with their UCards during most of the day and late into the night -whenever the cluster office is open. Van Meter residents do not have access to Butterfield. Even those of us who are honors students residing in Van Meter cannot access the tranquility of Butterfield’s lounges. Nor do Van Meter residents have access to study areas in Orchard Hill or in any other dormitory on campus. Students who live in dormitory halls without designated academic lounges or labs should be encouraged academically with the opportunity to use facilities in other residence halls.
All students should be encouraged to pursue their education to the fullest possible extent. We are an educational institution, and that means putting stock in study areas, books, classrooms, language labs, computer labs, and quiet motivating spaces to create a campus atmosphere that makes studying attractive. Anybody who says a dingy cubicle in the basement is as motivating as an invitingly clean wood table and comfortable chair under warm lighting is either lying, the person who will be asked to pay for this wood table, or more driven and less shallow than me.
The atmosphere at the University of Massachusetts is not conducive to academic rigor. Undergraduate students on campus struggle to find quiet, comfortable areas in which to study, write and conference. Residence halls without study areas lack what makes a university academically potent: promotion of a mission of erudition in academia. The establishment of respectable academic lounges by the University, both in the dorms and on campus, as well as extended library hours would promote self-edification to students.
S.J. Port is a Collegian Columnist.
