Dean's List

Maybe it was doomed from the start by being named Ogg Hall. It falls from the lips with a thud: part odd, part egg. It was my dorm for three years in college, but more than that, has been a home in my heart ever since. And they are tearing it down.

Ogg Hall was ill-fated by other things besides its name. It is a twin-tower, 13-story monster, designed and built at a time in the 1960s when large blocks of space mattered more than comfort. No air conditioning (not that it was needed in Madison, Wisconsin), room doors that opened to concrete walls (today a dorm-design no-no), public area showers and rest rooms, and a legend – true or not – that the city code had to be changed later because the rooms were built too small.

I loved it. When I first learned that I was assigned to interview at Ogg, unaffectionately called “the Zoo,” notorious for its rowdiness and lack of charm, my heart sank. Then I interviewed with a man named Jeff Janz and concluded that hey, if he can like it here, maybe I could too.

What would follow were some of the best memories of my life. It was a boisterous hall, but it was fun. The residents were like the ones in the coveted lakeshore halls, but they, like me, had a bunker mentality. We could make this place home. The programs were incredible: the Ogg Jog charity run, the House parties, the winter games on the muddy IM field, “Bob” Newhart with a twist, trips to Milwaukee for Brewer games, and more. We had characters galore all over the building.

The staff became best friends and had a role model and mentor in our new boss, Susan Winter. Still today I am in touch with fellow RAs (technically House Fellows) Muff, Sid, Behemoth, T-Bone, Miss Bill, Stebs, and Rag, to name a few. We had our own campus officers named Sasso and Ooboo, trips to the hospitals, fights, noise, and with an 18-year-old drinking age, virtually no alcohol violations. But there was stress, and angst, and too many residents for too few staff. With its highs and lows, Ogg became more important than class for some of us.

In Residential Life at Trinity we like the slogan “Always Home.” This is a nod to the skyline campus location (where Trinity finally settled down after three previous moves). It also reminds us that this campus is not only home to students now, but also to the alumni we welcome back later.

My friends in the Ogg community stood by me when I lost a parent and a family home (we sold the house I grew-up in) at age 20. The more they gave, the more I wanted to give back. When it came time to leave, I had to be pushed out the door.

The new facility will fit the needs of today’s students. They won’t have to meet new friends at 2:00 a.m. in the bathroom, brushing their teeth after a night on State Street. They won’t have to be weighed down by all the concrete, the slow, broken elevators, or the cramped quarters.

It will be far better, but it will never be Ogg. It will never be home.