By Elise Schoening
Features Editor
Every week, Features Editor Elise Schoening hits the archives and finds old Signals that relate to current College topics and top stories.
A forum held this week detailed plans for the possible demolition of Travers and Wolfe halls, which would be replaced by a new dormitory for freshman and sophomore students. Construction is slated to start in five years. Losing Travers and Wolfe halls also means losing T-Dubs, the late night dining hall that connects both buildings. The dining hall is a staple of the freshman experience, although it saw a surprising decrease in business in 2004.
Late night wings, cheesestakes, frozen yogurt and white paper bags filled with candy are some things most sophomores, juniors and seniors at the College fondly remember getting from T/W in their slippers when they lived in the Travers and Wolfe Halls as freshmen.
“We ate there at least five times a week,” Chris Civitarese, junior marketing major, said.
Freshmen living in the Towers this year, however, feel they cannot take advantage of the downstairs dining hall’s convenience.
“No one ever wants to go (to T/W) and waste their points,” Maureen Haggerty, freshman Spanish major, said.
This is because food can only be purchased from T/W with points of which freshmen on campus have a limited supply under the Carte Blanche system.
“I think a lot more people would go there if the meal plan was different,” Haggerty said. “(T/W) is so much more convenient and I like the food better.”
Sodexho employees have noticed a considerable difference in business this year from previous years.
“A lot less people have been coming in here (compared to last year),” Tanesia Dean, a Sodexho employee working in T/W, said.
This is despite the recent additions of a CD jukebox and two pool tables to the dining hall.
“The jukebox is cool,” Civitarese said, “But that dining hall was created primarily for the freshmen. So therefore, the emphasis should be placed on their experience and convenience.”
Mike Chiumento, junior English and secondary education major, said he likes the fact that he no longer has to wait in line for food at T/W.
As a College Ambassador, Civitarese said having T/W downstairs is one of the best perks to living in Travers and Wolfe Halls. “And that’s something that I always talked up in my tours,” he said. “Now they can’t really take advantage of it.”
