I recently watched a romantic comedy in which one character recited the line “a house is a place, but home is a feeling” (Sleeping with Other People).
Most Ohio University students don’t call Athens home. Rather, they call it ‘hOUme.’
hOUme is a place where we shape our careers, run into three people we know on the way to class and convince underclassmen to swipe us into the new dining hall.
For me, hOUme can best be narrowed down to Schoonover Center for Communication. The building was a mere rumor when I arrived for freshman orientation, but would come to have an extreme impact on who I am as a person.
In December of 2013, I was one of the first Ohio University students to enter Schoonover Center. The Dean’s Office, where I worked as an office assistant, would be the first office to move from the Radio-Television Building to Schoonover Center.
The building would evolve over the next two years in ways I never imagined. My duties as an office worker would be simplified: to deliver something to the School of Communication Studies I simply took an elevator ride, instead of a walk down Union Street. To go to class, I rode the same elevator to a room with four projection screens and dozens of televisions for active learning instead of walking to a then-mold-infested Scripps Hall.
In those elevator rides, classes, student organization meetings and work meetings, I found hOUme.
Now, Schoonover Center is my hOUme-base. I can be snapping pics for the social media accounts I run for Scripps College of Communication (yes, I got a promotion!) and see my best friends studying together in the lobby.
It’s a running joke in my friend group that if anyone texts me while they’re in Schoonover, chances are I’m already in the building and am on my way to join their lobby study session.
Some people might think that’s crazy, but I like to think I’m consistent.
Schoonover Center is hOUme.