RIP: graduate student library lounge

At the end of last school year, Hesburgh Library administrators closed the graduate student lounge on the east side of the ninth floor. The space now belongs to The Observer, which was forced out of South Dining Hall due to the ongoing renovations there. Meanwhile, no plans have been announced to replace the lounge in the library.

I have an office carrel with a window on the same floor, on the north side. It’s where I do most of my work as a Ph.D. candidate in the English department. Over the summer, as I worked on my dissertation, penned scholarly articles and lesson-prepped for a class I am currently teaching, I watched an array of workers transform the lounge into a student newsroom. Movers hauled in tables, chairs and large Mac desktops, electricians put in new wiring to accommodate the influx of computers and painters slapped on fresh coats of paint to give the walls new life.

Given my journalism background and my habit of reading The Observer, I was pleased to welcome the new neighbors at the start of the academic year. But on the other hand, as a graduate student, I couldn’t help but feel slighted. When we had a lounge, I would use it every day of my work week, Monday through Friday. It was a space just for graduate students: its existence acknowledged that many of us work out of the library, and that graduate students in other buildings need a place to eat, socialize and recharge before going back to their labs and offices.

Aesthetically, though, the lounge was a janky and depressing space for a number of reasons. The cabinets were dilapidated and sections of the casing covering the bottom of the walls was chipped or missing entirely. The chairs were a mishmash of styles that were probably surplus from other rooms in the library. And there are no windows. Several times, I brought up the need for repairs to building managers and administrators, in writing and verbally. But they ignored me. Eventually, I gave up complaining and accepted the lounge for how it was. 

Not long after they announced the closure in late April, an acquaintance of mine, Subhas Yadav, a Ph.D. student in romance languages, expressed to me his frustration with the news. Occasionally, we would bump into each other in the lounge; but most of the time our paths diverged, given that he is a night owl and I am generally a morning person. 

In an interview, he told me that the kitchen area was what he liked the most about the lounge.

“If I got food on campus, I could keep it there,” he said. “It was right at the library, so you are not obliged to step out; you could have lunch or dinner [in the lounge].”

He also noted that it was a good way to meet other graduate students, saying, “You would meet new people from different departments and also parts of the world.” 

Yadav wants to spearhead an effort to get library administrators to open up a new space for graduate students — one with a kitchen, a microwave and table seating. The basement, he said, might be a good place to open a new lounge. Last week, he emailed Margaret Meserve, interim dean of Hesburgh Libraries, asking for such a space, or, at the very least, for a microwave and a fridge, maybe next to the vending machines.

In an email to me, Meserve, who is also vice president and associate provost for academic space and support, noted that graduate students have a lounge in Duncan Student Center, on the second floor. Additionally, she highlighted investments by the College of Arts and Letters in graduate student work and lounge spaces in Decio, O’Shaughnessy, Corbett, O’Neill Music and Jenkins Nanovic Halls. She also underscored recent renovations to the first and second floors of the library and the accessibility of the Mahaffey Family Scholars Lounge in front of Au Bon Pain.

“The Library has a master plan to renovate the remaining floors of the tower,” she wrote. “We recognize that some students valued the former lounge on the ninth floor, and as future renovations proceed, we will continue to consult with students and faculty about their needs for amenities on the upper floors.” 

Since they closed the lounge, I started going to Decio Hall in the morning before starting my workday at the library. I leave my lunch in the English Department’s refrigerator and go back around noon to heat my food in the microwave and eat in the dining area by Decio Café. On a good day, sunlight trickles in through the wall-to-wall windows. I look out and see green lawn, trees and bushes. It’s very scenic.

Truthfully, my treks between the library and Decio are refreshing. And the change in routine makes me feel more integrated into the English Department. In the morning I check in and, in the late afternoon or early evening, I check out. Maybe once the snow, cold and permacloud hit, the change won’t be as enjoyable. But for now, it works.

Still, it seems graduate students have been left in the lurch. In the waning days of summer break, when no one was around, I placed my ID on the card reader, just in case I could still get in. But no luck. The light stayed red. The scanner piped its denial at me.