Pictured above: the Makerspace on Mount Holyoke College’s campus, South Hadley, MA. Photo by Emily Meier '24.
By Ansley Keane ’23
Staff Writer
After many months of Mount Holyoke’s campus being closed, the buildings have started to open up again. Following the on-campus quarantine period, different spaces and resources recently became available to residential students.
On Feb. 1, various study spaces in the Williston Library, the Ciruti Language Center, Dwight Hall and the Reese Psychology and Education Building became available for students to reserve seats for studying. The Kendall Sports and Dance Complex, the Fimbel Maker and Innovation Lab and Blanchard Hall have also become available for residential students, and the cultural centers, the Unity Center and the Eliot House have begun to offer “satellite spaces” for small groups of students living on campus to come together.
Although the on-campus spaces available to residential students are more limited than in previous years, being able to access these spaces and resources in person still has benefits. “It feels like you’re more on campus when you get to walk to these buildings,” Lindsey Hands ’22 said.
The Fimbel Lab, located in Prospect Hall, opened its space to residential students on Feb. 2. The Fimbel Lab is available for academic work, and students who wish to use the space must make a reservation in the Event Management System. Design Mentor and Technical Lead at the Fimbel Lab Kris Camp noted that being able to have limited in-person offerings is especially great for a resource like Fimbel, where hands-on learning is emphasized.
“Reopening the Fimbel Makerspace to limited student access is exciting because it feels like small steps in getting life back to normal, a step back into more hands-on engagements,” Camp said. “When students are working in the space, there is often an invisible creative energy that can be infectious in the best sense of the word. We’re really excited to get back to that spot.”
Reopening any campus space is not without some challenges during the pandemic. “The limitations of how we can safely support in-person hands-on learning while simultaneously supporting virtual offerings can be quite tricky,” Camp explained. “With the current limitations, things take even more time, which is extra challenging with an accelerated mod[ule] system.”
Although only residential students can make appointments for academic projects at this time, the Fimbel Lab is still available for virtual project consultations for personal work and for off-campus students. These virtual appointments can be booked through Pathways.
Fimbel is also offering some workshops this semester: “So far this semester we’ve hosted two virtual 3D modeling workshops and the very popular Chocolate Lab workshop, and we are in the stages of finalizing some details of some other workshops that we’re planning for Mod 2,” Camp said.
In addition to newly opened spaces, some in-person events have begun taking place. Alicia Erwin, associate dean of students and director of student involvement, shared her thoughts on planning in-person events during this time.
“Mount Holyoke has such a vibrant, welcoming community, and to be able to provide space for students to be in fellowship with each other through traditions and events — in particular, first-year and new students — is an important part of what makes Mount Holyoke MoHome,” Erwin said. “I am excited to be a part of making that happen, creating experiences that can elicit the feelings traditions and community events give while creating memories for students,” she added.
Erwin also shared her excitement about being able to provide training and advise student organizations on how they can hold some activities in person. Student organizations need to work within the parameters of Massachusetts state requirements, such as capacity limits. “[The h]ealth and safety of our community is the number one priority, and how do we then think about what traditions and community events can look like when we know we cannot bring our entire community together in person at the same time?” Erwin said. “Student Involvement has been working in coordination with a number of others at the College, through the Student Experience ERT [Emergency Response Team], which includes students, staff and faculty representation, to develop in-person events along with other resources and offerings for residential students,” she added.
Erwin explained that residential students can expect events in and near the Community Center, monthly surprise events and events specific to first-years, such as First-Year Pop-Ups. She called for students to share their input and ideas with the College through the surveys in the Dean’s Corner emails and on the @mhcstudentlife Instagram.
Both the Eliot House and the Mount Holyoke cultural centers now have “satellite spaces” available on campus for residential students to use. Graduate Assistant for Residential Community and Inclusion Ysabel Garcia spoke about being able to have these satellite spaces available.
“The most exciting thing for me is to bring back the emotional safety that these spaces offer to the students,” Garcia said. “I am optimistic that these spaces will reduce [the] isolation I know many students are feeling on campus.”
Student Assistant for the Jeannette Marks House Feng ’21 shared their perspective on being able to have a satellite space available for students to connect in person. Feng said the most exciting thing about being able to open satellite spaces for residential students is “being able to reconnect with the community in person and being able to make connections with first-years. … It’s been really nice to see the community even though things are [different],” they added.
However, “realizing how few people could [be] in the spaces while we are still mainly indoors and figuring out how the spaces will have to be set up and run to be COVID[-19] safe [is challenging],” Feng remarked. The Jeannette Marks House will have open hours each week, both in-person and online, and students can expect events online and in-person in addition to the open hours.
“I plan on having outdoor events because I want many people to be able to attend safely,” Feng explained.
From Hands’ perspective, being able to visit more spaces on campus has been a positive aspect of the campus experience this semester. Hands shared that visiting campus spaces this semester has felt safe so far; however, having to reserve spots at Kendall and LITS study spaces has been difficult.
“[Kendall] has been so unclear about if you have to sign up or not, [and] the idea of signing up for the library — I understand it, but also I don’t,” Hands said. Even though some more spaces have opened up, studying on campus is still a very different experience than it was pre-COVID-19. “It is also a very isolating time, and it’s hard to get these approximations of the authentic Mount Holyoke experience, like running into people,” Hands shared.
Hands is optimistic that the campus could continue to open more buildings as the semester progresses. “Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I think it’s possible that things could open up more,” Hands said. “I feel like our numbers have been going down, [and] I appreciate efforts that they have [made] to do more community-building things.”