Hobson stands tall, red, and Victorian at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Main Street, a sentry reminder that houses can be bold, beautiful, and unique. It was, for many privileged students, a residence hall.

It isn't anymore.

Now, it sits empty, and the 17 students who would have lived there this year pass by it on the way to other residence halls. That number includes me. I would have lived there for the third year in a row, not counting the semester in which I studied abroad. I would have been glowingly proud to call myself a three-year Hobsonian, as I know many of my fellow seniors would have been, too. It was a place we loved, not simply for its stained glass window, ornately carved banister, or other qualities that quietly reminded us we lived in a home built to last, long before we were born.

When our new president proposed a plan that would involve converting it, I hoped desperately that it would not be put in motion until after I graduated. These things take time, don't they? It didn't work out that way. The formal plans were announced, along with the intention to make it all happen as soon as possible, early last semester while I was abroad. Far away from campus, far away from anywhere I could either attempt to do something about it or commiserate with my housemates.

I dreaded returning in the fall to a new building that didn't belong to me or the students anymore, but to Admissions and the prospective families filling the spaces I used to call my own. You see, I'm a tour guide. I would have been spending a lot of my time trying to do my job while also pretending I was not bitter about the change if all had gone according to plan. Personally, that would have been a shame. I love my job more than I can say—there’s

nothing like the high coming off a perfect, high-energy tour where I've really connected with a family that really loves Ursinus. Yet, a part of me could begrudgingly see that it would be cool for families to connect their idea of Ursinus with such a beautiful, historic home. So I tried to make my peace with it, as upset as the idea made me. I did.

And then I returned in the fall, and Hobson was empty.

Locked up tight and dark, there were no residents, prospective families, or even construction crews inhabiting its halls. Why? Because, at least in part, the plan was rejected. While there may have been a recent financial snag in this process, it's the general word on the street that the zoning board has been the real obstacle.

When the plan was originally proposed last year, I scoffed at it, because I figured that those involved in the project would quickly realize what I already knew. Hobson is a beautiful historical space used for residential purposes in a residential area. There are reasons why you don't see small businesses next to houses next to office buildings, at least in suburbia. It's because these areas are "zoned" for residential use. Transforming Hobson from a residence hall to a welcome center would have fundamentally changed the way it's used; it would have gone from a residence to a commercial space, or some similar designation. Getting permission from the zoning board to allow such a change is usually extremely difficult.

And that's not even factoring in Hobson's historical value. The changes they would have had to make for it to be fit for its new purpose would have been relatively extensive, and potentially could have damaged the historical integrity of the home. As far as I know, the zoning board takes that into account, too.

I wasn't even old enough to legally drink then and I knew this plan wouldn't work.

So I'm not surprised at the way things have turned out. I just don't understand why they didn't recognize the likely outcome of this plan when I did. I realize that this is all a little bit more complicated than I'm making it sound, but still. Hobson is not going to become a welcome center for the exact reasons I predicted. The people who decided this are not novices in business. Were they merely arrogant enough to assume that they would find a way to get their plan pushed through? Did they really not think about the zoning issues? I'll probably never know. But I am paying for their mistakes, even if it gets to be a home again someday.

Regretfully yours,

Haley