On Thursday, January 19th, the English department hosted an open house and scavenger hunt to welcome back their students. As many of you know, Merrifield Hall, the home of the English department, will be under renovations for the next eighteen months. Because of this, the department has been relocated to Gamble Hall. The department’s new space is located on the second floor with English classes taking place on all three floors.   

In an effort to make students feel more at home, the department decided to host an open house where students were invited to come hang out, enjoy some snacks, and mingle with professors, GTA’s, and other students. Along with the open house, the English department’s Adelphi Literary Society, nicknamed ‘Lit Club’ by its participants, created a scavenger hunt.   

While Gamble can be confusing, there are many cozy nooks and crannies students are welcome to explore and hang out in. Adelphi wanted to make sure that all students feel welcome and able to hang out in the many available spaces. Using books, literary figures, and helpful professors, the scavenger hunt took the participants through the whole floor. The purpose of the hunt was to highlight some of the more hidden spaces including professors’ offices, GTA offices, the English reading room, and the Black Studies Library.   

Keely Mclean, a senior majoring in commercial aviation and minoring in English, has a leadership role with Adelphi and was very involved with the creation, planning, and execution of the scavenger hunt. “Coming from a student who was very accustomed to Merrifield and its halls, classes in Gamble have become a new challenge to tackle this semester,” she said. “Hence, a scavenger hunt throughout the English floor of Gamble became a perfect solution help fix this challenge. I enjoyed brainstorming clues with Lit Club and setting it up. It was fun sending participants off into “the hunt” and watching them pass by with either perplexed or content expressions on their faces. In the end, students, and faculty (and myself) finally feel comfortable in Gamble,” McLean said.   

At the end of the scavenger hunt, participants were able to enter their names into a drawing for a gift card from Archives Coffee House on campus. Everyone was then welcomed to mingle in the reading room and the conversations varied from classes to current writing projects and even Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. While it was a relatively small event, it was an event that allowed the English students and faculty to feel more at home in Gamble Hall until their beloved Merrifield is up and running again. 

Aubrey Roemmich is a Dakota Student General Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].