GCC’s ancient dorms reflect misplaced priorities
By Jase Herrick · Contributing Writer
When I moved into Hopeman Hall at the start of the fall semester in 2024, my father helped me carry my belongings into the building. As soon as we stepped into the room I would be living in for the next nine months of my life, he stopped, looked around and said, “Wow. This place looks the exact same as it did when I was here.”
At first, I thought he was joking. But the more time we spent in the room, the more I realized he was right. The same old wooden chairs, the same scuffed up 200-pound desks and the same rickety broken ladders to the top bunk; all the furniture was the same.
Brian Herrick graduated from Grove City College in 1987 and would go on to father a daughter and two sons. The youngest of his sons, me, would later attend the college and live with the same furniture he did 37 years earlier.
When he was here, the campus was a very different place. As technology has changed, classrooms have been updated and buildings have been renovated, such as the fancy-looking STEM building and the new Smith Hall of Science.
Perhaps I am insane, but I cannot imagine that while I am doing homework at my desk, there was a guy sitting in the exact same chair 40 some years ago listening to Michael Jackson’s latest song, “Thriller,” on his cassette player, while his roommate watches the beginning of Michael Jordan’s rookie season in the NBA.
I know what you might be thinking. “The college has limited money, and the money is being spent elsewhere,” you might say.
To this argument, I have two responses. The first is that yes, the college administration has been allocating money to other places around campus. For example, the college installed an extremely important renovation made to the end of the quad when they added a half circle of concrete to the sidewalk pathway. That was definitely an extreme necessity.
In another example of shrewd investment, the college renovated Lincoln Patio, adding a smokeless firepit, new outdoor furniture and a bunch more space for activities that likely nobody will ever use.
How about the bleak looking stairs leading to lower campus that are already cracking and falling apart? Yes, these renovations do seem super important and not unnecessary at all, which leads me to my second point.
It’s just my humble opinion, but maybe upgrading the interior living spaces of the people that attend the college might be more important than upgrading exterior elements like a patio or sidewalk.
I am in a unique situation in that last year, someone broke one of the old, 200-pound desks that would have been in my room today. It was replaced by a newer looking, sleek wooden desk that now belongs to my roommate.
That new desk sits right next to my old one, which is currently breaking into pieces. His desk is clean, polished and has an outlet, multiple compartments and shelves. Meanwhile my old desk has a light bulb that does not work and an engraving on it which I’m almost 100% certain reads, “Wagner ’82.”
Worse yet, the dorm rooms in Hopeman Hall have no screens on the windows. When it gets hot outside, the windows need to be opened. These open windows are the perfect invitation for dozens of bugs to fly right on in, make themselves at home and stay the night.
Hopeman Hall has a lot of history. Its legacy is something worth preserving and being proud of, but that is not an excuse to hold onto furniture that has been falling apart for decades. The dorm rooms remain incredibly outdated even as everything else on campus is getting renovated. It gives off a message that the college is trying to get as many students as possible to enroll and not caring for their flourishing once they arrive.
Memorial Hall illustrates this point, serving as a highly stylized freshman men’s dorm shown off on tours, while only freshmen are allowed to live there. It is not a great look that the best dorms on campus are for freshmen only.
If GCC can afford all the new renovations being made to campus, I am sure that some money can be passed the students’ way to improve the furniture in Hopeman. I should not be sharing a room with my dad’s college furniture like it’s a family heirloom. Let the 1980s stay in the 1980s where they belong and work toward getting some new furniture in Hopeman to improve the lives of Grove City College students.
