By Emma Quirk ‘26. Faculty Lane, whose street sign is pictured above, leads to Dickinson Hall, a parking lot, the Jeannette Marks House and more residential properties.
By Maahi Jaiswal ’24
Staff Writer
Walking along Faculty Lane, it is hard not to notice the extremely bumpy and pothole-ridden pavement, making the road dangerous and unsafe for the community. These conditions make traversing the road dangerous from an accessibility standpoint.
Faculty Lane leads to Dickinson Hall, which houses 63 residents and has a student parking lot. It also is the primary pathway to the Jeannette Marks House, a cultural house dedicated to LGBTQ+ students, staff and faculty. Even though pedestrians on foot are relatively safe, students on bikes and electric scooters are at risk, as experienced by Lynn Sleiman ’24, the residential fellow of Dickinson Hall.
Sleiman recently started using an electric scooter on campus and has had difficulties traversing Faculty Lane.
“I’ve almost fallen so many times because there are so many bumps [and] so many potholes, and I did fall once, and I ended up in the middle of the main road,” Sleiman said. “The first time I noticed how bad it was was move-in [day]. I was about to break that blue [move-in] cart because it could not handle the road.”
In terms of Dickinson Hall residents’ concerns, Sleiman stated, “No one has brought it up.”
Sleiman observed that many residents of Dickinson Hall who own bikes must be especially careful to navigate the road. “There is one tiny area of the road that is not the worst, so people just use that,” they said.
Sleiman has not yet reached out to any administrators about this issue. Instead, she connected with her supervisor, an Area Coordinator and staff member for Student Involvement Ailsa Schmidt, who also noticed the road’s poor condition.
“She noticed how bad it was when she went there and just told me that it would be best to wear a helmet,” Sleiman said.
Anne-Marie Mahnken ’92 is a South Hadley resident who currently lives on Ashfield Lane, a street connected to Faculty Lane. As a community member, she expressed discontent regarding the school’s response to the road’s maintenance.
“It’s really been decades that it has been in poor condition. Mount Holyoke does every once in a while patch the major potholes, but it kind of disintegrates every year and gets bad again because it just hasn’t been properly taken care of,” Mahnken said. “Mount Holyoke owns not only Faculty Lane but also Jewett Lane and Ashfield Lane, and so it is their responsibility to take care of those roads. Lots of walkers with dogs use the area, and at night, you can’t even really see the unevenness of the pavement,” Mahnken said.
Photos by Emma Quirk ‘26. Community members are concerned with the poor road conditions, pictured above, of Faculty Lane.
In a written exchange with Mount Holyoke News, Mahnken claimed that she had reached out to the department that oversees Mount Holyoke’s “buildings and grounds.”
“They were responsive and they understood the situation,” Mahnken said.
“Facilities Management is well aware of the condition of Faculty Lane,” Karla Youngblood, associate vice president for Facilities Management, said. “This is why Faculty Lane is included in our multi-year paving plan. Although the timeline is dependent on any emerging needs, a full re-paving of Faculty Lane is currently scheduled for summer of 2025.”
According to Mahnken, “The Board of Trustees needs to approve that money to fix up Faculty Lane and/or the other roads, several of which are in poor condition. It’s an expensive project at this point because they have been neglecting it for so long. My understanding is that it was brought before the Board [of] Trustees, and they voted not to fund it [for now].”
When Mount Holyoke News reached out to the Board of Trustees via email to corroborate Mahnken’s claim about voting on funding repairs for Faculty Lane, the College’s Director of News and Media Relations, Christian Feuerstein responded.
“The Board of Trustees did not vote on this item. There has been no vote,” Feuerstein wrote in her emailed response.
The project to completely pave Faculty and Jewett Lanes is anticipated to cost approximately $550,000, according to Youngblood. Mahnken regularly takes walks around campus and stated that other roads have been maintained better.
“Mount Holyoke consistently gets one of the top awards from the Princeton Review for being one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. I would think that the college would want that part of campus to be safe for pedestrians, not damaging to vehicles and also kind of aesthetically look nicer,” Mahnken said.
Mahnken has several ideas about how to bring more attention to this issue.
“I have thought about circulating a petition in the neighborhood, maybe submitting that to the new president,” she told Mount Holyoke News.
Mahnken noted that the condition of the road has gotten worse over time.
“It’s been a long time that it’s been like this, but it is probably the worst it’s ever been right now,” Mahnken said.
In the short term, Youngblood confirmed that Facilities Management plans to make pothole repairs this fall.