Mercersburg Academy has announced an exciting project which will have a profound effect on campus life: a new dormitory. The new dorm will likely be situated near Tippetts Hall along Sycamore Lane. Construction will not begin for another few years, but it will be the first new dorm since Fowle Hall opened nearly 50 years ago.
Quentin McDowell, Head of School, elaborated on the school’s decision to construct a new dormitory: “One of the areas of need identified in our most recent campus master plan was our residence halls. As we prepare to address these emerging concerns in a number of our residence halls, we anticipate that we will have to take individual dorms offline in order to perform the necessary work. So as not to have any disruption to the school or our student body, we have identified the need to build a new residence hall that can hold enough students for us to go in and renovate existing dorms as needed.”
McDowell continued, “As for the residential experience, all new buildings should be driven by programming. Thus, as we plan a new dorm we have taken the necessary steps to consider first the ideal experience we want our students to have and then design around those principles.”
The dormitory is part of the larger campus master plan. Julia Maurer, Associate Head of School for School Life, explained what a master plan is: “The campus master plan is a blueprint for the next decades in terms of the projected needs of the campus. Spaces eventually will need updating and renovating or to be replaced. And the campus master plan aims to take a look at all the needs in the campus and give us a blueprint for how to move forward. Building the new dorm and that site have been identified for quite some time.”
On October 15, students were able to see potential designs of the future dormitory. From that, the school gathered feedback. Maurer explained, “The feedback from students was incredibly important because it's going to be the students' living space. Also the way that they designed that particular dormitory will help us think about what elements we want all of our spaces to have when there is renovation.”
Jennifer Craig, Associate Head of School, noted, “I want to be really clear that people understand that those are conceptual drawings; those are not architectural drawings. People can go look and make a critique of every part of those buildings, because I'm sure that's not exactly what they're going to look like, meaning that all of that feedback can possibly lead to redesign.”
Craig continued, “In our dorms, we'd like to have some bigger spaces so that clubs could meet there or [students] could grow some gardens… and cooking can happen there, so it can feel much more like home in that way.”
Conceptual drawings depicted modern designs, and some students wondered how such a dorm would or would not fit into the architecture of the campus. Roy Seligman ’28 said, “I think the design looks pretty cool, and the potential amenities in the description of the new dorms seem really exciting. My only qualm is that it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the campus.” Noah Park ’29 echoed that sentiment: ”It is a futuristic design compared to most of the dorms. It is good to have a modernistic design, but I feel it lacks the old legacy on the campus.”
Others expressed concern about the interior of the building. Ally Snyder ’28 worried about the structure of the rooms: “I thought that… the dorm design looked really cool and futuristic, but I think, upon closer inspection, it's very set in its way. My roommate and I rearranged our entire room to make it more homey and make it more like what we enjoy…. [Y]ou can't do that in these rooms because the desks are built into the floor.” Siyuan Wan ’27 agreed: “The idea of having each single room almost exactly identical and making it really small makes me feel it's going to look like a jail. There are no other variations in room structure. They were just one box and another box next to it and so on.”
Other students appreciated the dorm’s design. Yule Kwon ’26 said, “I think it will be a very fresh and energetic design for the old campus.”
Charlie Higgins ’29 recognized the dorm’s greatest potential: “We'll have more space and it'll be another place for students to hang out.”