With all classes moved online for the spring, the pangs of nostalgia for campus life have already set in for many students. Nowhere on campus is a more painful point of longing than the beloved Donnarumma Hall, which in hindsight is the most precious and home-like building in the university. Students of all stripes have come out in online support of their lost classes in Donnarumma, citing the emotional benefits of studying someplace so purely dedicated to learning.
The large brick edifice, formerly known as the faculty office building, contains two large classrooms buried underground in the hillside, as well as several seminar rooms inside its looping corridors. These rooms are greatly favored over the classrooms on the top floor, since they lack any windows that could distract students from the class material. Likewise, the plain, colorless exterior of the building is now a time-honored classic, far from the frou-frou modernity of Langguth or the new Dolan School of Business.
In a text conversation peppered with emojis about sports, Lewis Hermenewis ‘22 said, “I’m taking a history class that was in Donnarumma 149. The Zoom chats are okay, but I just really miss the space-age desks with all the swivel-y bits. And I miss the fluorescent lighting in the early morning. Heck, I miss everything Donnarumma-related.”
Efforts to use the building for quarantining students were scrapped last week, after campus administration realized that the rooms visible through the windows were faculty offices and not holding cells.
Students are planning to put up a Facebook page entitled “Save Donnarumma,” in a show of support for this venerable and wonderful centerpiece of campus. Stagnation stands with the student body in eager anticipation of next year, when physical classes can resume and Donnarumma Hall can once again host Fairfield’s students in its completely beige-colored grip.
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