As a growing number of students enroll at Mississippi State University, the demand for housing increases every year. In response to the growing student population, the Luckyday Scholarship program partnered with MSU to develop a new residence hall: Azalea Hall.
Luckyday scholarship winners are housed in part of Azalea Hall called the Luckyday Tower, made possible by the Luckyday Foundation’s donation of $4 million for the project. In addition to these winners, Azalea houses a wide variety of new students. Some of these students have lots to say about the new hall’s environment.
Like most dormitories on campus, Azalea Hall is co-ed, with males and females being separated into opposite wings. The new dorm also features the classic southern red brick exterior that is traditionally used across campus.
However, unlike the other dorms, Azalea Hall features individual rooms for each resident. This is a new layout on campus, as most other dorms have a sharing style with one or more roommates. Azalea’s new floor plan was presented as a scholars’ dorm, so students will have a more focused room for studying and greater academic success in the new year.
While Azalea has individual rooms, the bathroom area is a communal set up, where the whole floor shares the showers and toilets. The original floor plan had four students sharing a singular bathroom and shower set, but this was changed. Instead, the whole floor shares eight individually closed off bathrooms with a common sink and locker area for toiletry storage.
Joshua Richeson, a freshman animal and dairy sciences major, considered these bathrooms tidy and accessible.
“Everything is always clean, and there’s always at least one shower and sink available when I want to take a shower,” Richeson said.
While Richeson commented on the bathrooms, Grace Boren, a freshman interior design major, spoke about the rest of the hall’s layout.
Boren said, “The layout works really well for studying. But if I want to be social and hang out with friends, there are spaces for that in the hall.”
Another resident and sophomore psychology major, Sierra Wyman agreed that the shared spaces provide more opportunities to meet with friends than her previous dorm, Hawthorne.
“I really enjoy the communal spaces on each floor,” Wyman said. “I’ve gone and sat with my boyfriend and friends and just hung out in those communal spaces, which I feel like the dorm I stayed in last year didn’t really have that.”
The communal areas offer spaces for fellowshipping while the small private rooms provide quiet places where students can study more, but the small bedrooms make storing big projects challenging according to Boren.
“I’m an interior design major, so it’s a little small for me because I need to spread my stuff out for class and homework, ” Boren said.
Wyman also spoke about the small size of the rooms in comparison to the full XL beds, but she said that people who did not bring too many unnecessary items should have plenty of room.
Along with the individual rooms, Azalea Hall is taking a step further than the P.O.D. in other resident halls. There are restaurants and a dining area on the first floor of the hall to ensure every student has access to a proper meal.
The three restaurants students have to choose from are Mezza, State Slice and the Lockbox. The Lockbox consists of Grub-Hub food lockers that students can order. Essentially the lockers are there, and you place a to-go order with Grub-Hub. Once the order is ready, it is put in the locker for pick up.
In addition to the dining areas, Azalea has a full kitchen on the first floor and a smaller kitchenette on every floor for students to use. This kitchenette features a shared microwave, fridge and water bottle refill station for the hall.
Roy Wright, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said he enjoys the chicken wrap in the dining hall and that he likes that the hall takes block meals.
“I like the dining hall. It’s really good, even for picky eaters like me,” Wright said.
Some residents found the location of the kitchen inconvenient.
“The only issue I have personally is that the kitchen is on the first floor only. So I have to leave my floor, cross the hall into a different building and go down[stairs] to cook,” Wyman said.
Residents did find the kitchenette on each floor useful, though. When asked if the shared fridge space was an issue, most students laughed and said no.
“I have my own mini fridge in my room,” Richeson said. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I think most people brought their own fridges.”
Boren did not bring a fridge like Richeson but agreed about the fridge space.
“I didn’t bring my own mini fridge ‘cause I figured not many people would use the main fridge…,” Boren said. “I was right. The main fridge is almost always empty, and when leftovers do appear, they’re gone soon. And I haven’t heard anything about food stealing being an issue on the floors.”
Wyman agreed, “With everyone bringing their own fridge, there was really no point in me getting one. I just use the shared one. I haven’t had anything disappear yet.”
In addition to bringing fridges to their rooms, many residents choose to decorate their individual rooms and commit to themes.
Boren decorated her room in cool colors to make it a “calming environment for study and to practice interior design before classes start” while Wright decorated his room to show school spirit with MSU colors. Other students asked about their rooms outside Azalea talked about their themes as “homey,” “pink” or “boho indie.”
With the new dorm added onto campus and the increase of students yearly, more dorms like this one with its individual bedrooms that allow students to decorate as they please and shared bathrooms may follow. Overall, Azalea Hall has received a positive welcome by students and is placing its roots strongly in our campus.
