On move-in day, excited, nervous, sweaty freshmen moved onto campus with cars packed with items from home to make the drab dorm room livable. I still remember driving onto the packed campus that day three years ago to be surrounded by overly-eager upperclassmen ready to help me move in. This year, I was glad to avoid the chaos of adjusting to a roommate I didn’t know and the communal bathroom. For those moving onto campus, I was glad to see the newest residence hall was finally ready for the hordes of plastic storage containers and mini-fridges, but there was a slight nagging problem in my mind: which New Hall is the new hall?
Both New Halls are east of South Patio, which is actually north of Derryberry Hall. If you left your compass at home or didn’t know about North Patio on the other side of the RUC as a comparison point, that could start to get confusing. New Hall South is a good four buildings north of South Hall. Without a clear distinction of what we’re considering the central point of campus, what’s with the fixation on directional names for buildings?
New Hall South is actually the new name for what used to be just New Hall. I always thought New Hall was sort of a silly name for it to begin with, as if no one alerted the administration that construction was done, and they could name it now.
And it really shouldn’t be called New Hall at all anymore, since it’s been in use longer than most students have been at Tech. It’s now old New Hall. Just as the new New Hall (New Hall North) will be the old New Hall whenever Tech gets around to tearing down Murphy/Jobe and building what I can only assume will be named North New Hall North or Newer New Hall North.
Why can’t the residence halls have names? What was wrong with naming them after former University presidents and state governors?
There are certain rules for naming buildings at Tech. Certain donation amounts into certain accounts determine whether a patron’s name gets attached to a building. It makes sense. I’m not suggesting we throw out the rules just to slap a name on a residence hall or two. But why can’t we use a temporary name that doesn’t require comparing the building’s age and location to another’s?
What’s wrong with Eagle Hall? Gold Hall and Purple Hall? Dixie Hall? I’m sure we could think of plenty of names for a residence hall that celebrate Tech and distinguish one building from another.
Or maybe in the near future, the halls will recieve real names like the rest of the residence halls on campus, making the confusion of the old/new/north/south names null and void.
Until then, I’m still calling New Hall South the old New Hall.
