THE barter student center cafeteria: spring hill's saving grace
Meara Tolley
For the first half of fall semester, Spring Hill College’s cafeteria would remove its tables and chairs. The high-ceiling space would appear ten times larger than it normally did because of its missing students. Meals would be served on styrofoam plates, and students were asked to grab their food and go back to their dorms to eat.
“I didn’t realize how important the cafeteria was to Spring Hill until it opened up later first semester,” said Meara Tolley a freshman from Chicago, Illinois. “Once they allowed us to sit inside, I started to see how many people at Spring Hill I didn’t know, and it felt like my first opportunity to meet new people,” shared Tolley.
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“I remember going to eat dinner one of the first couple of weeks it opened, and this kid walked in with a speaker and was being super loud. Naturally, I had to let him know he was being annoying,” laughed Tolley, “so I introduced myself to him, and now he’s one of my closest friends.”
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Besides providing a place for the freshmen to meet new people, Tolley also made the observation that the cafeteria showed that the Class of 2024 is a cliquey one. “You can see clusters of friend groups from different dorm buildings.” When asked why she thought this, her response was simple: “the people we live with were the only people we had for the first two months.”
Meara Tolley, Claire O’Malley, Hallie Matherne, and Libby Hoke now look forward to going to the cafeteria because they realize that it’s more than getting a meal.
Tolley added that the first two months at Spring Hill consisted of her taking classes and spending time in her room. “I had a bunch of people on my hall who were a part of the same sport’s team, so they would mainly hang out with each other, and I felt like I didn’t know anyone,” said Tolley. She also explained that her room was toward the end of her hall, so she felt isolated from what her floormates were doing, but when the cafeteria opened up it changed everything.
Her friends, Hallie Matherne and Libby Hoke felt the same way. Matherne said that the cafeteria was a place that made her feel “connected with the rest of the school.” Hoke added, “it was finally a place where I could go that wasn’t my room.”
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Hallie Matherne
Libby Hoke
