Since arriving on Notre Dame’s campus, sophomore Peyton Honchar can’t think of many times she has felt homesick. The overwhelming nature of the transition to college was immediately mitigated when she moved into her new home, Howard Hall.
“From the first day of Welcome Weekend, I was just surprised at how much these people who I didn’t know and who didn’t really know me already cared about me,” Honchar said.
Residents of Howard discussed their memories of the hall and their hopes and concerns for the community’s future with The Observer as the Ducks prepare to move into Therese Mary Grojean Hall next year following Howard’s retirement from residential life.
To Honchar, the hall’s secretary, what sets Howard apart is how many of the girls are “bought in” to the dorm’s community. In Howard, she said, “It’s cool to care. I remember being a freshman and seeing all these sophomores and juniors bought into Howard. Seeing these people that you look up to being bought into the dorm, that makes you want to buy into it too.”
Howard residents’ commitment to their community is also what Howard’s rector attributed the dorm’s close-knit nature to.
“Since my first day as a Rector, I understood that Howard residents completely BUY IN to the community! What has made our culture unique is the standard our students set for one another. Students show up and attend one another’s events, performances, and games,” rector Anna Kenny wrote in a statement.
The strength of Howard’s community was so noticeable to senior fellow and former hall president Olivia Murrin that she decided to transfer into the dorm after spending her freshman year next door in Badin Hall.
“I know people that have moved from bigger, better dorms to Howard, because Howard’s community is entrenched in everything that we do. Everyone’s very close,” junior Hannah Hartnett, wellness and Howard Halliday commissioner, said.
Howard’s current president, junior Athena Westland, said the strength of the community was what inspired her to run for president.
“I was just really passionate about continuing the great community that I got to benefit from my freshman and sophomore year for the future residents, giving back to the community that had shaped my Notre Dame experience,” Westland shared.
To Westland and the other residents The Observer spoke with, the largest contributing factor to the dorm’s community besides the willingness of residents to go all-in on Howard has been the dorm’s size. With a capacity of 148, the hall is one of Notre Dame’s smallest.
Westland, who noted that the dorm’s small size enabled her to get to know everyone even before stepping into her role as president, added that the less favorable aspects of the dorm’s physical state further brought residents together.
Because only the hall’s common spaces are air conditioned, Westland explained that for the first few weeks of school, residents spend their time together in Howard’s family room, dubbed “the pond.”
Also quick to mention the pond, Hartnett said, “Everyone hangs out there. If you’re ever feeling down or isolated, people just sit in the pond and will talk to you. They’ll be watching a show, and you can watch with them. We do puzzles. There’s always events going on. There’s always people willing to chat.”
Kenny acknowledged the impact of the dorm’s size on its community, writing, “Having a small community is a factor that has helped shape our culture. Students know most, if not everyone, in the building. It makes a difference when you recognize a face and know a name from someone who lives on a different floor than you.”
Hartnett added that the community was similarly strengthened by the fact that Howard only has one kitchen and that the small size enabled resident assistants to get to know the girls both in and outside of their sections well.
To Murrin, even the layout of the hall itself has contributed to the strength of Howard’s community. She has noticed that the dorm’s long hallways presented many opportunities to say hello to other residents as they passed by.
“I think my favorite moments come down to times in Howard itself. I have many memories of walking around in the halls of Howard late at night, and running into other ducks and we all just end up sitting down in the hallway. As time went on, more and more people would walk by and join us, and we would just talk (probably way too late) into the night,” junior Grace Mazurek, fall vice president, wrote in a statement.
After Howard residents were gathered in their chapel on Nov. 20 to hear the news of the move from their rector alongside director of residential life Nathan Elliot and associate vice president of Residential Life Karen Kennedy, Hartnett said she cried for days.
In addition to mourning the building she’d come to call home, Hartnett, who will live off campus next year, said, “I was upset at the nature of where we were going. Howard is not the best building in terms of quality, so I will be happy for those who move into Grojean in terms of quality of dorm. If Grojean were smaller and new, it’d be perfect, but I think the community just logistically cannot stay the same in Grojean, which is really upsetting. With the move, Howard can’t exist.”
She expressed concern that the office of residential life had prioritized making dorms larger and nicer rather than preserving community. Despite what she observed as community, especially residence hall communities, being the most important thing to Notre Dame students.
Grojean will house 275 students, making it the hall with the greatest capacity at the University.
“A lot of the newer dorms are big and nice and accommodate more people, because they want to have more students, which I understand, but I feel like you’re going to lose that community. I’m very, very sad to see it go, very sad that the Ducks might no longer be a thing,” Hartnett said.
Hartnett added that some of Howard’s signature events will be difficult to replicate in the new building given its size. Each fall, Howard has a family reunion, renting out a cabin on Lake Michigan, which won’t be possible given the size of the new dorm.
Honchar, however, was confident that the community would be preserved despite the move. She said the first thing she thinks of when she hears the word Howard is the people, not the building, and those people will still be there in Grojean, where they will expand to add more girls to their family.
She feels that sometimes the dorm’s smaller size limited participation in events, and hopes that the larger community will allow Grojean to have new events which will reach more people in the campus community.
Honchar also feels honored that her sophomore class will get to set the tone of the community in Grojean.
“The ball is in our court for building the culture in Grojean,” she said. “As long as we have this bought in mentality and we are actively making decisions and actively reaching out to people once we double in size, I think that’s key. The culture that we build in Grojean is going to stem from us, and if we just let it pass us by, then I think that’s a real missed opportunity, because I am of the belief that there’s a really good shot that we can replicate what we have in Howard.”
Freshman resident Delaney Park was similarly optimistic about the move. While she said the increase in size would mean there would be a decrease in close bonds between everyone in the hall, she noted it can sometimes be hard to find a niche within a smaller dorm and hopes that more residents will mean more people will be able to find their own space and friends within the dorm. For Park, a global affairs major, this means looking forward to the possibility of living with more humanities majors.
Murrin additionally noted that since the current Howard residents will be combining with freshman and transfer students moving into the new dorm rather than merging with another existing dorm, there is a better chance that the Howard community will live on.
“There are big dorms on campus that have great communities, so we can be looking at what they do to build community,” Westland said. She added that future generations of hall leadership will have to find ways to encourage the students to still get to know each other and place a heavier emphasis on section culture.
“Howard residents have the energy and are ready to take our small hall culture over to the Grojean. The residents are locked in on doing everything they can to make Grojean a place where all are known, loved, and served. We will strive to be a community where the names and faces of residents on each floor are familiar and be a place that feels like home for every person,” Kenny wrote.
No information is available yet as to who will serve as rector of Grojean Hall.
Echoing Kenny’s confidence in Howard residents’ ability to navigate the changes, Mazurek wrote, “Values of community, inclusivity, trust, and respect are things that have been ingrained in us so deeply, and I know that we will continue to hold closely to these values as we take on the challenge of moving into a new dorm.”
She explained that in the spring, there will be multiple conversations with dorm leadership and residents regarding which traditions will be kept, what new traditions will be possible and how to transfer the community into a larger dorm, enabling them to be ready to “hit the ground running” in Grojean come fall.
