‘Place is important': Students, professors say goodbye to Williams Hall

Before Rosemary Pennington was the chair of Miami University’s Media, Journalism and Film (MJF) Department, she was a student at Ohio University (OU) and a part of the university’s radio station, WOUB.

During her time at OU, the building housing the radio station underwent renovations, including the repainting of its walls. The department told students they were allowed to write all over the walls before the painting was done.

“It was really fun,” Pennington said. “It really made us feel like we were part of the place.”

Today, Pennington has felt some parallels between the renovations at OU and the imminent moving of the MJF department from Williams Hall to the newly-renovated Bachelor Hall.

To help the department, staff and students process the change, Pennington worked with Miami to make her experience at OU – one that helped her with a big change at her school – a reality for MJF students.

From April 27 to May 8, students, faculty and staff were permitted to cover the walls of Williams Hall with words and messages as an outlet for students to process and prepare for change.

“It feels like a way to let them say goodbye to places,” Pennington said. “It lets them say goodbye to a space that was really important to them.”

Shannon Mahoney, a sophomore creative writing, strategic communications and journalism major and editor of the university’s student newspaper, The Miami Student, said that she was excited about the opportunity.

“I think it’s a really cute idea,” Mahoney said. “A lot of people are very emotionally attached to the building … we’ve all spent a lot of time there.”

Mahoney shared that she has had classes with some of her closest friends inside Williams Hall, and allowing students to cover the walls in their own words lets them say their goodbyes and have an opportunity to get closure before the building is torn down.

Sarah Frosch, a graduating senior media and communication major, said that while the change is a positive one, it is still difficult.

“I think (it’s) just the energy that’s kind of created in that building,” Frosch said. “The size gives it a closer-knit community (feel).”

Even though all of Frosch’s four years weren’t spent in Williams Hall, the building played a significant part in her college experience at Miami, and graffitiing the walls felt like a way to say goodbye.

Andy Rice, associate professor of media and communication and film studies, began working in the MJF department in 2017 after moving with his family to Oxford from San Diego.

After initial uncertainty about the move to Oxford, Rice has grown to be excited about the chance to create a new culture in a new space.

“The students are a little sad,” Rice said. “But they also understand that the kids coming up are going to have a real state-of-the-art facility to learn in.”

Rice shared his anticipation about having students graffiti the walls.

“I think that public art of this sort gives a sense of life to a space,” Rice said. “It can evolve and change, but it also helps create an identity for the students who make it and the students who come after them.”

‘Humanities Hub’

With the re-opening of Bachelor Hall, the MJF department will start sharing its space with other humanities at Miami, including English, history, philosophy, the Altman Institute for the Humanities and the Ohio Writing Project.

“There is a little bit of it being bittersweet,” Pennington said. “I think the one thing Williams (Hall) has been great for is that MJF has lived here and only MJF has lived here.”

Pennington shared that having a dedicated space for MJF allowed students and faculty to build a community and create their own culture, and moving to Bachelor Hall with other departments might require an adjustment.

“The hope is that it does create some moments of cross-collaboration,” Pennington said.

Mahoney, a creative writing and strategic communications major with a minor in journalism, said she is looking forward to having various humanities-centered classes in one building.

“It’ll be nice to have us all in one space,” Mahoney said. “I think there’s definitely a lot of cool opportunities to be had, particularly between the English and (MJF) departments.”

Frosch said that combining the humanities at Miami under one roof can be a positive thing.

“I think there are a lot of overlaps that exist within the humanities,” Frosch said. “I think people will be able to take better advantage of the overlaps that exist between English majors, journalism majors, film production students and other creative fields.”

While Frosch won’t be a student when Bachelor Hall opens, she anticipates the future that the building can create.

“I’m excited to see what the underclassmen make of this,” Frosch said.

Williams Hall legacy

Pennington says the move from Williams to Bachelor Hall is nostalgic.

“There’s a real sense of loss with leaving Williams (Hall),” Pennington said, adding that since joining the department in 2015, the building has been a home for her.

Williams Hall has housed the MJF department since 2013, and was the former site of WMUB, the university’s radio station.

Pennington shared that having the MJF department housed inside a former radio station was a really special thing, and losing that as a learning space is hard.

“Place is important,” Pennington said. “It shapes your identity, it shapes your experiences (and) it shapes your memories.”

For Pennington, the demolition of a building with so much history and impact on the media is difficult.

“That history of Miami nurturing a public radio station and supporting local news – that legacy is going to be physically gone,” Pennington said.

One of the weaknesses of Williams Hall, according to Pennington, is the compact size and dated features of the building.

Mahoney shared the same sentiment, adding that Williams Hall is “very size-limited.”

Although the move will leave behind a site of history, Pennington said she believes there is a lot to be excited about in Bachelor Hall.

“They have designed the building to have a lot of open spaces for students to work together in big, open spaces or also collaborate in smaller spaces,” Pennington said. “My hope is that it’ll really help develop a sense of community amongst our MJF students in a way that I don’t know that they are always developing in Williams (Hall).”

Pennington said she believes an updated, modern building with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment might attract more students into the MJF department and increase competition with nearby schools with more modern facilities.

“We often, when recruiting students to MJF majors here at Miami, are competing against programs like Indiana or Ohio University or Kentucky or Kent,” Pennington said. “They are programs that generally are located often in big colleges of communication and often have had a lot of money thrown at them.”

The space in Bachelor Hall, Pennington said, will compete with industry standards.

Mahoney said she believes these upgrades could bolster the MJF department’s student count during a time when journalism isn’t at its most popular.

“I think that journalism definitely is a major that is not attracting a lot of attention right now from prospective students, which I think is really kind of a loss,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney also shared that she believes having the humanities in one building could introduce more current students to the MJF school.

The MJF department, which serves almost 780 students, will begin its move to Bachelor Hall in late May before Williams Hall’s scheduled demolition in early June.