Save Zahm Common Rooms

Condoleezza Rice signed our petition to housing, we'll let you know if its effective.

For a University that's mission is to build community, eliminating the social common rooms sounds like it is diverging from that mission

Everyone should also email [email protected] to continue to express their concern

It is ironic that a University which prides itself so much on building community is attempting to dismantle what is arguably the best part of the most tight-knit residential community on campus. It's a shame that they are selling out their Catholic mission for the sake of standardization. It's good to know that the University of Notre Dame is now exactly the same as every other school out there where everyone moves off campus as soon as they can.

Common rooms were extremely important for me as an international student to find a community in my new home.

As a Notre Dame/Zahm Alum and former RA, I can speak to the importance of Zahm's unofficial "common rooms" in developing a sense of community and family. To eliminate them would undermine the very spirit of Our Lady's University. If you choose to do so, please remove me from your mailing/calling lists as I will no longer be making donations.

The common rooms are places where all are welcome, all are treated as equals. To decommission them would be to castrate the closest-knit brotherhood at the University of Notre Dame and is a step in the direction of destroying the sense of community on which the University claims to pride itself.

I shouldn't even have to argue for why the integrity of the common room needs to be preserved. University life is as much a social experience as an academic one. If I didn't want that, I would've applied to the Naval Academy.

As a freshman, the common rooms have been extremely beneficial to me. They give Zahm the sense of community that we are known for.

Please don't do this, you'd hate to see me mad.

At the very least Housing should tread lightly here. Per Catholic Social Teaching, "A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good (Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 1883).

I lived in the 1B5man (151 was my room) and I had the greatest experience. These rooms aren't places where parties are held and freshmen get drunk. These common areas are places of safety. If someone is having a fight with their roommates, they know they can come to talk to a member of a common room, sit down, watch some TV, play some video games, or just relax while things blow over. We hosted a weekly movie night on Sundays. We rallied students in our section to show up for section sports. We advised our section mates on homework, classes, and even major considerations. To get rid of these strong, and large common rooms would be a mistake. The reason these rooms are such a hub is because they allow large groups of friends to pull on room together. Without it, sections would become decentralized and the sense of community lost. The students in my section my Sophomore year (1B) are still my best friends in Zahm. I live off campus now, but I still keep in touch with 1B friends more than any others in Zahm. I hope you reconsider the initial ruling. Thank you.

The common rooms are the heart of Zahm's community and brotherhood. If you take the heart out of something, it dies. I'm a biological sciences major, so you can trust me on that.

4 years of Zahm Hall living have supplied me with a lifetime of memories and wonderful friends. The common rooms are where freshmen met upperclassmen and where we as upperclassmen passed on what living in the Zahm community was all about. Zahm has been a real community on campus for a long time. Support that, don't damage it.

I fear this is a misguided attempt by the Office of Housing to "improve community" when in actuality it will be counterproductive. Zahm's common rooms are at the root of the very best Zahm has to offer to the Notre Dame community - true friendships, strong fraternal spirit, and loyalty to one another. To remove these common rooms would be an enormous setback in ND's mission to stand apart from other institutions when it comes to residence life. We don't want to be another step in the direction of standardization of residence life. The common rooms are what make our community vibrant and active - it would be a shame for future students to live in Zahm without them. [This comment is reposted since ipetitions apparently doesn't ask for confirmation if you accidentally press the Delete button]

As a new resident in Zahm, I can clearly see the importance of the common rooms in creating a strong sense of community - something Zahm has so graciously given me.

Zahm House is a brotherly, supportive community which ought to be a model for other residence halls. The Notre Dame community would be better served by helping other residence halls emulate Zahm House, rather than by attempting to tear the fabric which makes our community so strong.

An excerpt from my email to Housing: Jump ahead again, to the end of that August. I was finally at Notre Dame, I made it. Of course, being a just-arrived freshmen, I was nervous. Would I like my roommates and the people around me? What will my friends be like? Would I even have any? It was late the second night when I heard a knock on my door. The sophomores that lived in the section common room were there, inviting me to their room to hang out, play Xbox, and meet each other and the other guys in the section. The men I met that night, to this day, I consider some of my best friends and brothers. Exactly one year later, I was in the process of setting up my own common room for the year. I was ecstatic to finally have one, and after everything the men that lived in the common rooms last year did for me, I couldn't wait to get to known the freshmen (and other upperclassmen I didn't really know) in my section and to get them to feel at home. That night, my roommates and I invited the freshmen into our room to meet each other and play Xbox. The men I met that night I consider some of my best friends and brothers. Yesterday, I was talking to some of the freshmen in the dorm. They were talking about how excited to have common rooms and to meet the freshmen next year. They knew that the freshmen they would meet at frosh-o would become some of their best friends and brothers. Today, that excitement is gone, as is one of the greatest aspects of our House, something that has been a huge part of my life and will continue to be one for the rest of my life.

As a resident and former RA, common rooms served as the center of community and bonding within the dorm. Group were brought together simply to make this possible, before any actual connection or shared space. If these are lost, it is shortsighted and a hughe loss to the community within Zahm and taking away from the mission of on campus housing and community life.

As the creator and co-manager of the famous Zahm Cup Classic? Unofficial fifth major? The most coveted trophy in North American Sports after the Stanley Cup? Inspired by all those post library gatherings where the most common refrain was...."Earl, thats the dumbest thing you ever said", I have to say that losing the common rooms not only destroys the character, the very fibre of Zahm during those 4 years as a student...it kills the fabric that holds the bonds together for the rest of our lives. I have observed with sadness friends in other dorms who have become honorary Zahm guys because they have lost track of their dormmates, my children who have graduated from their colleges with nothing like the special bond that holds my Zahm mates together. We have tailgates 100 strong...have even invited certain young Zahmbies to join us as they have wandered by. I met a person in my company who is currently assigned to china..learned he was an ND guy and when we found out we were both Zahm becoame instant friends and colleagues and are now doing deals together. There is nothing like Zahm and it starts with the late night common room sessions, where steam is let out....ides exchanged...and lifetime friendships born! Save the Common Room!