If someone can't find Makayla McCollum in her dorm room, they will find her on the sixth floor study lounge of Brayton/Clevenger Hall, gazing at what she considers the most beautiful view of campus.
"You can see the bell tower, the library, the rec center, the entrance to Brayton/Clevenger, everything worth seeing," she said. "It's probably my favorite spot on campus."
LaFOLLETTE LIVING
McCollum, sophomore psychology major and part-time hall representative, lives in the Brayton/Clevenger part of LaFollette Complex, for her second year. She said she stayed there because it was the cheapest place to live on campus and since some of her friends were staying there, she thought she should, too.
"[LaFollette] has the perfect placement," she said. "There is a bus stop right out front, I am close to Robert Bell and an inQsit lab, and there's convenient parking. I can also tape things to the wall and get food downstairs. It can't get much better."
LaFollette Complex, the largest housing complex, is composed of the Brayton/Clevenger, Knotts/Edwards, Mysch/Hurst, Woody/Shales and Shively halls. It is also home to the Communication and Business Living-Learning communities, as well as Out Of Bounds Market and Grille and Courtside dining facilities.
The complex is named after Robert R. LaFollette, a Ball State social science professor and department head for 40 years (1921-1961). He was known for having a great memory, never forgetting a student's name or where they sat in his class, according to the Ball State website.
After seeing the other residence halls on campus, McCollum said she is still happy with living in LaFollette.
"The other dorms only look prettier and cleaner because they are newer," she said. "They don't have the charm and the sense of community that LaFollette does. I meet lots of new and cool people here. It's more open here."
Kevin Topp, sophomore telecommunications major, lived in LaFollette last year, and he decided to stay in the same room with the same roommate for this year. He shares similar feelings as McCollum when it comes to the sense of community that the complex has.
"Obviously, LaFollette is the oldest complex on campus and needs renovations anytime now," Topp said. "However, I like the atmosphere here best. This is a really nice community."
COMMUNITY FUN
Jennifer Stanley, sophomore journalism and telecommunications major, also lived in LaFollette last year. She said the building itself was awful, but there were more opportunities to meet people there than in Studebaker West Complex, her current residence hall.
"I lived on the eighth floor of Brayton, and the elevators would break all the time. So I'd end up having to go up all eight flights of stairs several times a day," Stanley said. "My heater made a banging noise if it was turned on, and my roommate and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. We didn't have heat almost all winter because it was just too much of a hassle.
"But you got to meet more people because everyone had their doors open all the time and would sympathize about how much everything sucked. In Stu West, the doors shut automatically, and everyone just seems to go about their business. I've met only one person on this whole floor that I didn't know before move-in, and I barely know them. By this time last year, I'd made several friends on my floor; friends I still communicate with now," Stanley said.
Stanley said she has great memories from LaFollette, some of which are impossible to recreate at Studebaker West. One memory she recalled involved a scooter, a cape and an empty hallway.
"I was scootering up and down the floor during the last few days of school," she said. "Someone brought a scooter up, and we rode it up and down the hallway screaming and wearing a cape because we're cool. We'd throw a ball back and forth with people further down the hall from us. None of these things I could really see us doing in Stu West."
McCollum said some of her favorite memories from inside the halls of LaFollette occurred last year as a freshman. She played Nerf gun tag in her sixth floor hallway and soccer with a giant orange ball in the study lounge.
"My friends, Jen and Olivia, [and I] had what we called fake champagne and game night," McCollum said. "We went on a Walmart run to get the Game of Life and Catchphrase. We bought a bunch of junk food and saw these plastic champagne-like glasses for like 50 cents. So we got some of them and some bottles of sparkling grape juice. We had half of a bottle gone in like five minutes and just had a really fun night."
McCollum said she also enjoyed various activities with her entire floor and hall community activities. She said one night that she enjoyed was "Harry Potter Night." She said she got to dress up and her floor made a house symbol.
However, McCollum said she has had fun on other floors as well, including the secretive ninth floor, an attic that is supposed to be locked at all times.
"I've been up there a few times just to joke and look around," she said. "There used to be a few mattresses, a broken red tricycle, creepy old art probably from the eighties and a giant spider Halloween decoration. I've also seen a few condoms up there, so I can only imagine what else goes on."
Stanley said she also visited the ninth floor when it was unlocked one night.
"It's this super creepy little room with pictures and magazines scattered about on the floors. There are old scrapbooks on this table, and the pictures in them look pretty old," Stanley said. "Then there's a separate part of the room that's blocked off with black plastic tarp, like someone put trash bags up. There's a door leading to the roof, but it was locked. The whole place is just very creepy."
RESIDENTIAL RUMORS
While the LaFollette community has its great moments, it also has its rough ones. McCollum said she has watched drug busts go on just outside of the building. She said she has also seen people come into the dorms completely drunk, as well.
Stanley said that while she didn't see a lot of people partying in the dorms, she saw a lot of people coming back from parties.
"The girls that lived across the hall from me would come back once or twice a week drunk, and they stumbled into our room a few times while trying to open their door," she said. "Some people down the hall would also party some. They'd come around once or twice asking if we'd seen miscellaneous items that they'd forgotten where they'd left while coming back drunk."
While those flaws can be fixed with better rule enforcement, one flaw that McCollum described needs a higher power to correct it. She said she thought that her old room, from freshman year, was haunted, and she believes other parts of the building are also possessed.
"In my old room, my roommate and I saw these creepy shadows. We would just see this black figure just standing in our room," McCollum said. "When I went home one weekend, my roommate called my crying. She saw the shadow and got really scared. I just stayed on the phone with her until she fell asleep. It was creepy."
And to add to the creepiness of LaFollette is the rumor of the building supposedly sinking. McCollum said it is sinking one to two inches per year. She said that it is easy to see the damage when it rains because the parking lot floods.
Yet, Alan Hargrave, associate vice president for Student Affairs and director of Housing and Residence Life, said that he has not heard the rumors of the building sinking before.
"I don't know where the rumors started that LaFollette is sinking, but I don't believe them to be true," he said.
Hargrave said future plans for LaFollette are being discussed, but there have been no definite decisions made. He was unable to speculate on what might happen to the building at this time.
While LaFollette Complex has its share of triumphs and trials, McCollum said she is happy there, especially when she is on the sixth floor study lounge of Brayton/Clevenger admiring her favorite view.
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