A mysterious building, Jolliffe Hall, has sparked curiosity among many students. They have no idea what Jolliffe Hall is used for or if it is anything more than a 75-year-old empty building.

Jolliffe Hall, located east of the New Living Center, was a residence hall until the summer of 2008 when the New Living Center was completed. It is now a storage facility for campus.

“During the renovation of the Boyd Center, it was an essential part of the renovation,” Jeremy Portlock, director of the physical plant & facility operations, said, “because we could take everything out of the science building that we were going to re-use and store it all.”

At this time, Portlock believes there are no specific plans for the building. He still considers it a major part of the Baker campus that will always be included in any further consideration of renovations.

When she was a student at Baker, Assistant Professor of Psychology Robyn Long lived in Jolliffe Hall during the fall of 1998 as a sophomore and then all of her junior year.

“Jolliffe Hall was co-ed and had four rooms on each floor,” Long said. “So it was this small, very tight knit community.”

The residence hall featured four or five rooms on each floor, housing three per room. Each room consisted of a living room with three desks and a bedroom with a bunk bed and a twin bed along with a shared bathroom. There was a resident assistant on the first floor and an additional room that was made into a guest apartment so visiting parents could rent it, much like a hotel. The basement contained a computer lab and laundry room.

“The thing that I think I liked best was the great sense of community,” Long said. “Most of the time the doors were open, we floated in and out of each other’s rooms, we played games, we hung out in the basement of Jolliffe a lot.”

Jolliffe Hall housed approximately 25 people.

“It was just a really unique, historical building to live in,” Long said. “It was like living in a little house.”

Garrett Pulliam, a new transfer student this semester, believes that something should be done with the building.

“They should redo the rooms inside so more students can live there, with different costs than the other dorms, and give students more options of housing,” Pulliam said.

Pulliam also thinks that Jolliffe Hall is worthless if it isn’t being used. If the residence hall is renovated soon, he said that he would want to live in the building.

Long also believes that Jolliffe should be updated and open for housing.

“I would love for it to house international scholars, or have visiting professors to come,” Long said.