EDITOR'S LETTER

SPATIAL RELATIONS

Early in the morning, when I typically arrive for work, Mendoza’s hallways are quiet and the atrium — filled during the day with students studying, eating, socializing, rushing to class — is silent.

Except for two times a year. Scattered here and there, I’ll find a few students sitting alone, spread out across the space among the farm tables and lounge chairs. Eyes laser-focused on their laptop screens or shuffling through a pile of handwritten notes, they are clearly in a kind of personal hell that can only mean one thing: finals week.

Stress radiates off them like a force field.

A few years ago, I got in the habit of carrying cans of juice and a few breakfast bars with me as I made my way through the atrium. I’d stop and ask if they’d had breakfast (the answer was always no), if they’d like a snack (the answer was always yes) and what final they were studying for. They’d share a few moments of angst and sometimes guilt that they left studying to the last minute. I’d wish them good luck and move on.

Now the construction of the North Addition is underway, which will transform the iconic Mendoza “H” to an “A” — adding 28,000 square feet of space for a new auditorium/classroom dedicated to founding dean John Cardinal O’Hara, new offices and breakout rooms, and even an outdoor terrace. Groundbreaking fittingly took place on St. Patrick’s Day.

But for all of the descriptions of “state-of-the-art” classrooms and “cutting-edge” technology, it really just takes one conversation with a student commiserating about finals to drive home a point about the meaning of space.

It’s really not about the building; it’s about building.

Previously, Mendoza’s mostly empty atrium served primarily as a student thoroughfare between parts of campus. Dean Martijn Cremers saw it as an opportunity to get students to hang around more — especially undergraduates, who by and large didn’t have classes in the building. When students did start hanging around more, filling up all of the building’s nooks and crannies where tables and lounges were made available, a new community took shape in the heart of the College. Mendoza’s atrium became a kind of family room.

To quote Father John Jenkins’ remarks when opening the enormously ambitious reimagining of Notre Dame Stadium: “We celebrate not simply a building, but a commitment to a distinctive kind of education, one that develops mind, body and spirit for service to the world.”

In a few short years, students will have made the North Addition their own. They will study and socialize in its lounges and sun-filled hallways, and undoubtedly a few will keep lonely vigils as the minutes to the dreaded final exams tick down.

But even the small moments — the early morning interludes, hallway chats with professors and late-night study sessions — are celebrations of this commitment, merging the meanings of “building” and “building” in a way that anyone who seeks community can understand.