Over the ten years of our relationship, my wife has had cause to poke fun at me for plenty of reasons. Chief among them may be my love for my hometown. Her barbs are well deserved as I irrationally use superlatives for most things -- the best park district, the greatest rec league competition, etc. What she calmly points out is that there is no way I could possibly know this, and it leaves me to admit that making such claims is pretty silly and delusional.
Over time, I’ve softened. While I still sing the praises of Arlington Heights, Illinois, I also see a bigger picture. Plenty of friends and family members grew up in other towns that were great in their own right, places these folks still have affection for and enjoy visiting. I’ve also realized that my hometown is excessively homogenous, extraordinarily privileged (as am I, and its current white inhabitants), and unfortunately, has recently been the site of hateful demonstrations. I think I appreciate my hometown more because I have come to understand its weaknesses as well as its strengths, and can love it for what it is while wanting it to be more and be better.
I am an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, Class of 2011. When Domers find one another out in the world, the first follow-up question could perhaps be grad year or major or extracurriculars, but it is most likely “what dorm did you live in!?” Notre Dame doesn’t have Greek life, so the residence halls straddle a middle area between being cold, utilitarian buildings you just live in and being immersive fraternities and sororities.
As an incoming freshman with a brother about to graduate, I had the chance to try to secure a place in Sorin College through him. I thought briefly about it and declined; I wanted to be tossed into the deep end of the random generator, for better or worse. When my assignment populated to my online portal, the code was ZA… for Zahm Hall.
Notre Dame by choice, Zahm by the grace of God, we (and some of our t-shirts) say. Over the coming weeks and months, anecdotes, online chatter, and even the hallowed RedBook that arrived in the mail built up a mysterious and lofty image.
Frosh-O (Freshmen Orientation) and the early community events were a crash course in learning group chants (house house HOUSE HOUSE), basic history (we are Zahm House, whether others called it that or not), and the ubiquitous importance of trying to pick up girls. The early months in the dorm were a speedy immersion into the norms and low-hanging fruit of college social life, from beers that only came in multiples of 30 to beer bears and case races.
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| Section 2A from freshman year (2007-08) |
Back in high school, and then also into college, my choice when in the midst of drinking, drug use, and/or sexual promiscuity was simply to opt out and to discourage it to friends, both before and after it happened -- it was the best and most I could muster at that age. Zahm’s “sixers” (enlarged quads for six guys) had blowouts “on the reg”; beer clouds wafted into stairwells nearly every weekend; and occasionally, you’d see girls stumbling through the hall, either before or after parietals required students to be out of the opposite sex dorms. It’s hard in retrospect, even if I never saw it, to wonder what sort of alcohol or drug abuse or sexual misconduct may have been happening just a few doors down.
I think my complicity comes in the way I embraced the chip-on-the-shoulder culture in Zahm. We relished the ire of other men’s dorms and built up the mystique we presumed from other women’s dorms; we perpetuated insular things like the NFS (“no foreign sausage”) rule barring males from other dorms at our parties; we heard the ignorant pep rally chants from other dorms of “Ole, ole, ole, Zahm’s gay” and joined in. Were other men’s dorms similarly dangerous or toxic? Probably, at least to some extent.. But Zahm as a whole, and even me individually, leaned into the tension and inflated it. And that wedge helped paved the road to closure.
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| Some freshmen invited to "come get some" during Torquemada 2008. |
For many memories that make me chuckle, a cringy element lurks just behind the laughter. Dorm-wide reply-all emails often were uproariously funny, with many even creating burner Gmail accounts (before burners were a thing) to anonymously send their message. Imagine getting an email uplifting the traditional practice of a whole-dorm streak through the student center during finals week… and it’s from Teddy Roosevelt, who signed it “Speak softly, and carry a big stick”. But you realize in retrospect that it was advocating the continuation of a wholly inappropriate tradition. Around 11:50pm on many Sunday nights, a ragtag gang of guys with trash-can drums, kazoos, spare musical instruments, and off-key singing would lead a “parietals parade” to notify the women that it was time to leave. For as funny as verse two was -- “Boy time! Boy time! Preserve the community!” -- it only came after verse one, which when sang nicely was “Parietals parade, get the (ladies) out!”
Yet, there are the more purely good and wholesome things, too.
For a socially unconfident freshman who didn’t want to drink, and wondered if he needed to transfer out, Zahm is where I found my guys. At first, it was watching sports stone cold sober; then, it was a junior friend who saw in me a sophomore who wanted to enjoy a beer now and then without getting hammered, and talk about more than the weather or football; finally, it became a comfortable dynamic of social drinking while just hanging out.
For a Frosh-O schedule chock full of boisterous chants, painfully awkward mingling with girls, and competitive games, we also showed freshmen how to pray. While night one saw us staff members donning war paint, shouting into bullhorns, and leading the charge running in packs, night two had a solemn candle-lit walk to the Holy Cross cemetery. Freshmen set candles at the graves of the CSCs who went before us. We then gathered them at the grave of Fr. Zahm with our priest in residence to reflect on our namesake, a renowned priest and scientist, whose dorm houses the Chapel of St. Albert the Great, patron saint of scientists. Finally, we sat them down under the dome, where each upperclassmen shared a short story of adversity, stress, and anxiety from freshman year, but added the prayerful caveat: remember, she is your mother, and pointed up to the Golden Dome. This was our small way to ground new students in four years of Marian devotion.
On Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night, whenever I got the urge to take a shoeless walk down to the chapel for 10pm daily Mass, I never went alone; there was always a roommate or section mate to go with me or a friend already in the pews happy to slide over and make room for me to join them.
And last year, when a dear friend and old roommate of mine got married, I saw the most Zahmbies I’ve seen in one place since graduation. I think of all the weddings where various invited guests are no-shows or have a conflict -- not In this case. Here a group of guys with so many different personalities, spanning six years of classes, who had roomed in different combinations and sections, all came. We all caught up, all introduced our wives and girlfriends, and all got to celebrate our beloved friend. I can’t think of another wedding with such a response except for this particular guy who was a hub of our community life in Zahm.
Yet, there are the more purely good and wholesome things, too.
For a socially unconfident freshman who didn’t want to drink, and wondered if he needed to transfer out, Zahm is where I found my guys. At first, it was watching sports stone cold sober; then, it was a junior friend who saw in me a sophomore who wanted to enjoy a beer now and then without getting hammered, and talk about more than the weather or football; finally, it became a comfortable dynamic of social drinking while just hanging out.
For a Frosh-O schedule chock full of boisterous chants, painfully awkward mingling with girls, and competitive games, we also showed freshmen how to pray. While night one saw us staff members donning war paint, shouting into bullhorns, and leading the charge running in packs, night two had a solemn candle-lit walk to the Holy Cross cemetery. Freshmen set candles at the graves of the CSCs who went before us. We then gathered them at the grave of Fr. Zahm with our priest in residence to reflect on our namesake, a renowned priest and scientist, whose dorm houses the Chapel of St. Albert the Great, patron saint of scientists. Finally, we sat them down under the dome, where each upperclassmen shared a short story of adversity, stress, and anxiety from freshman year, but added the prayerful caveat: remember, she is your mother, and pointed up to the Golden Dome. This was our small way to ground new students in four years of Marian devotion.
On Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night, whenever I got the urge to take a shoeless walk down to the chapel for 10pm daily Mass, I never went alone; there was always a roommate or section mate to go with me or a friend already in the pews happy to slide over and make room for me to join them.
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| Our cheers to four years on the steps of the Main Building |
So as our Frosh-O signs had joked, even with the building 84 years standing and still erect, the active community of Zahm House ends in a few weeks. Being ten years out from last living there, I have some realism in my perspective. It probably wasn’t the greatest dorm ever; in fact, we never won dorm of the year awards -- though that’s because we never applied either. The building may be further renovated, ultimately renamed, eventually repurposed. And I think a detachment and surrender helps bring peace -- no name, no building, no tradition, no legacy is, or should be, bigger than student welfare, than a culture of welcome and support, than a respect for just policies. None of us can open the ResLife books and audit the case; I don’t appreciate the abrupt and final manner of sharing the decision in the dark of night; yet, I accept the ruling, and suspect it's well deserved and fully warranted by the exceedingly poor judgment and recalcitrant behavior over history and especially these last few years.
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| Senior day 2010, on the field |
I try to keep processing my memories, straining and filtering the details so that I can relish the good and confront and acknowledge the bad. I hope others find similar perspective -- it's not wrong or weak to admit fault. One of Zahm’s last legacies may be one of a cautionary tale: build an identity; cultivate a community life; but don’t push past reasonable, needed boundaries of student welfare and safety. Or else you don’t deserve to continue. And for those of us who lived it, we can admit complicity in its weaknesses yet also extol its strengths.
Maybe this is a moment to reword and offer an old Zahm toast:
We drink one for the Irish;
We drink one for the Zahm;
We drink one for the 84 years
before they shut it down.
*cheers*
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