Norah Beckwith | Staff Writer | nbeckwith@mail.smcvt.edu
Sloane Hall men’s bathroom stall art.
Before St. Michael’s College sold North Campus, it was home to Sloane Hall, student dorms, and even a dining hall.
Sloane Hall, home of the art and design department, is one of the last buildings owned by St. Michael’s College on North Campus and is about a mile from the main campus.
Depending on where you are on the main campus, it is anywhere from a 5-minute drive, to a 25-minute walk according to Google Maps.
Thalia Guarnieri, ’26, said they feel a sense of isolation due to spending so much time on North Campus, compared to other majors who exist primarily on the main campus.
Prior to 2020, when St. Michael’s College owned dorms on North Campus, a school bus would shuttle people to Sloane Hall from main campus.
As St. Michael’s College began selling off parts of North Campus, the shuttle was eventually shut down due to lack of funding. Now, the transportation consists of student workers driving school vans to and from.
“People get the misconception that we like to be separated from the main campus, that couldn’t be further than the truth,” said Brian Collier, professor of art and design.
“I feel like I’m in a different world than my friends- doing what I used to be doing” said Laila Travers, ’25, an art student who switched majors sophomore year from public health to art and design.
The gallery space in the McCarthy Art Center acts as a primary way for the art department to get visibility on campus, said Collier. Each art and design student gets a one-week gallery of their own work during their spring semester senior year.
Outside steps of Sloane Hall.
During the fall semester, local artists are invited to display their art in the space. Collier said this gives St. Michael’s College artists a chance to show classmates their work, as well as allow the same artists to network with local, more established artists.
As a senior art and design major, Travers has her own studio space in the building. “It’s where I go to find inspiration and read and sit and be and like, it’s been very important for me to have that space,” said Travers.
Guarnieri described moments of being at Sloane Hall alone, and feeling like there was a character and personality of the building there, despite it being empty.
Both Guarnieri and Travers described bringing their friends to Sloane Hall as a transformative experience. The building was a place where they could find inspiration despite not being art and design majors.
“To me, it’s all positive since I was a student. I mean, there’s just more offered,” said Molley Briener an art and design adjunct professor and St. Michael’s College alumni. She described how much the change from “fine arts” to “art and design” represented a broadening of options for students at St. Michael’s College.
Briener said the feeling of community was heightened by there being both student housing and a dining hall on the same campus as Sloane Hall. “It was just an extension of main campus,”said Briener.
Students like Guarnieri and Travers who express feelings of being unseen on the main campus, said that the program and the building are often misunderstood by outsiders. Collier said when non-majors go to Sloane, their eyes are often drawn to the peeling paint and dirty floors.
“If you don’t get it, just say that,” Guarnieri said.