Editorial Time to say goodbye, old friend

Author: [no author name found]

It is time to shut down Proctor Dining Hall for renovations. We do not mean small changes around the edges, and we do not mean just for a weekend or two - the improvements need to be swift and far-reaching to ensure that the facility can survive well into Middlebury's future.

But don't run for your wrecking balls just yet. Some ground rules need to be laid out first.

The fact is that everyone, even the most love-blind Proctor devotee, knows that the building is far from perfect. The vast distance between the kitchen and cafeteria, which are on completely separate floors of the building, means that food arrives late, cold and literally delivered via an elevator. While the dining hall's flagship specialty is the four-machine, central panini bar, the current arrangement is a makeshift solution.

But Proctor is a collection of inconveniences and inefficiencies to which we have become endeared over time. You pick your friends, you pick your college, but you don't pick your Proctor. So we've learned to love it all.

The dining hall's heavy, bulky furniture might make it difficult to rearrange, but it also makes it feel more permanent and homey than the cold, metal and plastic patio furniture of Atwater. The odd layout of the building may seem nonsensical at first, but it makes the facility more manageably compartmentalized, once you know your way around.

Every dining hall has its trademark flaws: The Ross arrangement makes each entrance an awkward runway walk of grand proportions. The Atwater design echoes and amplifies conversations, setting a bottom-line level of shouting for all communication. And from today's perspective, no one will ever understand who thought the moldy, subterranean Freeman-Hamlin-Cook complex was a good idea.

But in the case of Proctor, the things we hate about it only strengthen the bond. There is a sense of loyalty to the imperfect dining hall that was there for us when we were scared, lonely first-years. So we say, "Leave him alone! You are mean, Old Chapel!" But is what we're doing really in Proctor's best interest?

There is a clear need for renovating Proctor, we only question whether anyone who thinks Ross or Atwater are successful designs, should ever lay their fingers on our dear old friend. So planning for a redesigned Proctor should be led by passionate students who appreciate the facility's odd charm, alongside current Proctor employees who can list its weaknesses.

The project could be a golden opportunity for students to become deeply involved in a major campus improvement, in creative new ways. Students could be called on to submit dream-plans for their ideal Proctor. Or elections could be held for students who want to represent their peers to potential architects, with different Proctor platforms laid out. Or a sociology class could be called in to analyze the Proctor loyalists and what makes them, and their beloved cafeteria, tick. Bottom line is, if anyone wants to touch Proctor, they need to do it with the same creativity and passion that students have taken in loving - and sometimes hating - it themselves.

This also means students need to stop shutting out the possibility for improvement. If we love Proctor as much as we claim to, we should be so selfless as to briefly part with the building and fully commit to making it even better. We advocate the closing of Proctor so that our children, and hopefully a few classes before them, will see a brighter day for our old friend of a dining hall. The design must be well-planned, the construction must be meticulous and students must be in charge, every step of the way.