When the small, possibly seasonally-festive calendar slips under the dormitory door near the first of the month, I sometimes pick up the schedule of hall and lobby duty assignments with, what I will admit is, slight dread. Every time I flip over the calendar marked with room numbers and mopping assignments, it seems the night marked with my room number is the day before a major test or impending due date. I do not allow this possibly over-overstated school work or probably over-exaggerated “dread” prevent me from completing my duty as an MSMS student, from cleaning my wing, and possibly lobby, to my fullest ability.

And, while that might sound cheesy, it almost fully captures my personal emphasis on keeping our residence halls clean.  As a school of more than 200 individuals, MSMS’s student cleanliness standards vary drastically. From alphabetized or color-coded drawers to never-unpacked duffle bags from the last trip home, the suites of Goen and Frazer contain a wild assortment of neatness and chaos. Personally, I do not care about the organization of anyone’s room but my own; due to the invention of doors, I am not concerned with what level of cleanliness lays in my peers’ rooms. The hallways and lobbies of the residence halls, however, are a public space and something I have to walk through every day.  Hall and lobby duty is a method of delegating the very necessary task of keeping our residence halls clean and habitable.

Some nights, the hall and lobby assignment looms as another thing to accomplish between lab reports, essays, studying and Mastering Chemistry.  The 15-minute tidy, however, will not totally derail most study plans and will provide a refreshing change of scenery, possibly improving later performance on late-night school work.  Between sweeping clumps of hair out of the hallway or scrubbing clean the inside of a microwave, hall and lobby duty also allows for a bit of roommate bonding time.

A recent event in the second floor Goen lobby highlighted a lacking enthusiasm for hall and lobby duty. On Dec. 15, during exam week, LaToya Bledsoe, Goen Residence Hall Director, sent out an email to all Goen residents with a grisly photo attached. A fire and health hazard in development, the spaghetti-tinted turn plate of the small microwave was covered in a mound of brown hair. In her email, Bledsoe said, “A pile of hair from the brooms was near the elevator, but to place the hair in a microwave where food is cooked will not be tolerated. Ladies, please exercise courtesy and respect and let’s take care of our home away from home.” After seeing the slightly sickening photo, I had to agree with our hall director about everyone pitching in to do hall and lobby duty.  

Next time your dorm room number comes up on the hall and lobby duty schedule, whether you have a 100-page paper due the next day or are just busy watching Netflix, take a short break and grab a broom to improve the cleanliness of our residence halls. If you have a serious conflict, you could possibly even contact a member of the ResLife staff on your hall and ask for assistance on making up your hall and lobby duty.