Choiwing Kong ’15, Staff Writer
Deegan Hall is one of the oldest dorms in Merrimack College. There are two buildings of Deegan Hall which is Deegan East and Deegan West. There is a outdoor quad where Deegan East, Deegan West, and Ash Centre meet. In the outdoor quad, students can sit on the outdoor benches and tables provided, play all kinds of outdoor games and enjoy campus life.
There are three floors in Deegan East: 16 rooms on the first floor, 31 rooms on both second and third floor. There are three floors in Deegan West as well with six rooms on the 1st floor, 34 rooms on the second floor, and 35 rooms on the third floor. However, in Deegan East there are co-ed floors, and Deegan West the floors are separated by gender. The number of residents in Deegan East and West depend on how students choose the type and size of the room. Merrimack offers many different size options including singles, double, triples and quads.
“The men and women do live on the same floor but are clustered by gender around bathrooms. You’ll see a grouping of a dozen female rooms located close to a female bathroom and then further down the hall, clustering of male rooms by the male bathroom” said Jazmin Averbuck, the Resident Director of Deegan Hall.
Averbuck continued to reveal information about Deegan Hall, stating, “there are multiple restrooms on each floor split by gender. On the first floor there are currently two male and one female. On the second and third floor there are two female and male restrooms on each floor. ”
“It is not that bad to use the common bathroom. It is actually better than I thought. There are three shower spaces and three toilets on each restroom which people won’t be crowded,” said Xiang Li, a resident in Deegan East.
In Deegan East and West, there are two common room spaces on each floor complete with a TV and couches to hangout with friends. On the 1st floor, there is a foosball table in the lobby. In Deegan West there is also a fireplace lounge complete with a community kitchen. Currently Merrimack is renovating the fireplace lounge with new kitchen appliances and will be open after spring break for use.
There is a laundry in the first floor in Deegan East that contains eight washing machines and eight dryers for Deegan Hall residences (students from both Deegan East and Deegan West share). There is no kitchen in Deegan East; however there has a community kitchen located in the Deegan West fireplace lounge which is currently being renovated and will be opening after spring break.
However, a student complained in the past that there was too much noise over the course of the weekend in the common room areas because people were playing music loudly and their room located right next to the common room.
There is one RA for the first and second floors and the third floor has two RAs each. Residents can talk to RAs about their problems or issues they may have regarding anything, and they can also talk to Jazmin Averbuck. People need to swipe their Mack Card in order to enter the building and residents need to sign in their guests. In the event of an emergency, students can contact their RA whom will contact Police Services.
Averbuck gave some final words about the student grade ratio at Deegan Hall, “As Merrimack continues to grow and expand, we have students in different class years living in different spaces on campus. While ¾ of the building are first year students, we have a number of upper-class students living in Deegan. Students have enjoyed the opportunity to return to the building.”
Some perks of living in Deegan East is that it’s a short distance to the Dunkin’ Donuts on campus and about 40 seconds walking distance from Deegan East to the Roger Center where occasional school events take place. The perks of living in Deegan West is that is one of the closest resident halls to all of the academic buildings and close to the brand-new fireplace lounge that’s opening after spring break!
