Two years after I first moved into Goodhue Hall as a first-year, I now bid it goodbye with a heavy heart. I am aware that Goodhue has a bad reputation. And, while it may not be as catastrophic as that of Musser or Myers, the dorm’s never been held as a gem of Carleton’s student housing portfolio. The two years I have called this dorm my home, however, have shown me that this poor opinion is misleading. So even as I look forward to climbing the food chain of campus housing, I feel moved to write the following tribute to the “dorm across the pond.”

Let me begin with the facilities. I arrived at Carleton with horrible visions of the dorm restroom experience, but aside from a handful of isolated incidents, Goodhue’s accommodations have impressed me. This is for one reason in particular — they’re single user. To be clear: there’s really nothing like single-user bathrooms. Once you succeed in claiming one, you have your fortress of solitude for as long as you desire. It’s amazing how quickly 45 minutes can pass when you are in a warm shower! Just watch out for the jagged edges of the bathroom doors, slowly splintering from 60 years of moisture exposure.

Among the campus dorms, Goodhue surely wins out in terms of natural light penetration. Oddly enough, it’s a luxury on this campus to have windows in a dorm hallway at all. Yet Goodhuers can boast of floor-to-ceiling glass in the stairwells and in the crossover between the building’s two sections. Don’t overlook the value of a little sunlight, especially in the gloomy depths of winter! 

Windows provide ventilation too, an amenity that is so essential to tame the fermenting atmosphere of college dorms. When a spring storm thunders through, one need only yank open one of those ridiculously heavy sliding glass panes at either end of the hallway to send the cleansing wind racing down the building, flushing out all the musty air.

Real estate is all about location, and many claim that this is where Goodhue falls flat. Yes, every Goodhuer must contend with the infamous walk, and I will not sugarcoat it — it’s agony in winter, practically uphill both ways. Wisconsin might as well be closer than Sayles. Simply going to get food at LDC takes courage when temps never climb above zero, and deciding to see the weekend movie at the Weitz could mean risking your life. But the effort strengthens you, for after one term of stumbling blindly through lacerating wind, you’ll feel like you can take anything Minnesota can throw at you. And there is one amenity you don’t have to trudge across campus for: the Rec Center. It’s not unusual for us Goodhuers to have the place to ourselves in winter term, when the rest of campus can’t bear to make the journey.

Furthermore, nature makes it up to you later. In the spring, you’ll almost forget the bitter snowbound marches as the birds chirp, the waterfall over the Lyman lakes dam gushes happily and green leaves sparkle overhead. 

This is maybe the best part of Goodhue: being immersed in nature. For an Arboholic, there’s really nothing like having that place right out the back door. Doing homework in your room and feeling antsy? Go for a walk in the woods! A herd of deer might even stroll past your window in the evening light. You will awake the next morning to the melody of forest avians, and on your commute to campus, you could encounter a river otter or a couple of Canada geese herding their goslings around. Even the walls can’t keep the wildlife out– in the fall box elder beetles and ladybugs emerge from every crevice to hunker down with us in our cozy rooms during the colder months.

So remember, there is such delight to be found in living off in the wilds, away from the hustle and bustle of campus. After a late-night work session in the Libe, few sights are more beautiful than the lights of Goodhue shimmering across the water, like some grand ocean liner ready to sail you away to dream world.

I cannot go without recognizing the artistic genius of Goodhue’s creator, architect Minoru Yamasaki. Yamasaki must be commended for demonstrating a little more aesthetic creativity than the hacks who did Musser and Myers. The walls of Goodhue aren’t just brick– they’re flemish-bond brick (look it up). So classy! And the striking arched facade on the superlounge, inspired by Japanese motifs, is a daring, visionary contrast to the dullness of most midcentury architecture.

Now that I’ve painted such a glowing portrait, I feel obligated to acknowledge a key drawback. I’ve never quite gotten over my fear of the elevator, which creaks and groans and pops as if it would come tumbling down at any moment. Sometimes it is out of service for mysterious reasons. The ventilation fan on the ceiling is missing a louver and seems likely to take off the finger of someone foolish enough to test the gap. But the elevator’s always been there for me on laundry day, so I can’t be too critical.

On the whole, Goodhue’s less-than-stellar reputation is undeserved. The dorm has served me well, and I’d almost— almost— consider living there another year.

So if you’re placed into Goodhue as a first-year or get a bad draw number and must “settle,” don’t despair. There’s much to embrace at Carleton’s rear end.