Every day the numbers get smaller.

With Rutherford Hall on deathwatch, members of the Franklin Residential College are leaving their home on Myers Quad so the building can be razed and retrofitted.

They’re moving to Building 1516 in the East Campus Village — but out of 100-plus FRC members, only 17 have signed up to live in the dorm as of late February.

With Rutherford's demolition scheduled for the end of spring semester, members of the Franklin Residential College have the option of relocating to building 1516 in the fall. Only 17 of the 100-plus residents have signed up for this. KRISTY L. DENSMORE/Staff

“It’s kind of heartbreaking for a lot of students like myself because the great thing about Rutherford is it’s one of the cheaper options on campus, bringing together students from lower classes, students from higher classes, and unfortunately between 1516 and the new building, that’s not going to be an option for as many students like myself,” said Samantha Bond, a sophomore scientific illustration major from Alpharetta and dean’s assistant in the FRC.

Leaving Home

Brett Isernhagen, a sophomore religion major from St. Mary’s, will be one of the members to move out of Rutherford when the building is razed this spring.

“Some of us don’t like the 1516 type of living,” Isernhagen said. “Half of me wants to assume Housing’s not nice, the other part of me says they’re just doing whatever they can.”

The FRC first found its home in Rutherford ten years ago, when the college was conceived by University Housing as a way to provide a community for students in the humanities and the sciences based on the residential colleges of Oxford University and Ivy League schools.

The FRC is primarily student-run by two dean’s assistants. Gene Wright, art professor and FRC dean, works with on-site dean Kameron Sheats to guide programming and liaison with University administration. Sheats lives with her husband and 22-month-old daughter in an apartment within Rutherford.

Wright said the school was modeled after colleges housed in historical buildings.

“Think of the Yales, the Stanfords,” he said. “[Housing] wanted to at least use some of the historical character of the Rutherford building and the Myers community when setting up the FRC.”

The “historical character” brought its own host of problems.

The Board of Regents announced in the summer of 2011 that Rutherford was unfit for student living, and documents obtained by The Red & Black in an open records search reveal residents requested 595 work orders during the 2010-2011 school year.

Bond recalled tales of broken showers with heads “ricocheting off walls,” faulty kitchen wiring and cockroaches in the walls.

“It’s just like any other building — things fall apart. And I don’t think it’s Housing’s fault, I don’t think it’s the construction of the building’s fault,” she said. “I think it’s just an old building that has undergone multiple renovations and to be honest — and I hate to say it because I love this building so much — it’s in the long run the most financially logical option.”

Prior to the Regents’ decision, Isernhagen said he had noticed creaky pipes, clanking radiators — “when you’re watching Paranormal Activity it’s not the best place to be, I can tell you that from personal experience” — and a moldy basement, but he and other students didn’t consider these to be grounds for razing the building.

“We assumed we had a shot up until the day the Board of Regents decided,” he said. “And so then when we heard we just went, ‘Oh well’ and decided being sad isn’t going to get you anything. We have to find a new home.”

“The Labyrinth”

That new home was Building 1516 — which Isernhagen refers to as a “labyrinth.”

“There’s a minotaur lurking somewhere in there I’m sure,” he said. “It just seems really big and a little impersonal.”

Big and impersonal — exactly the things Isernhagen said he was seeking to avoid when he enrolled in the FRC as a freshman.

“I talk to a lot of people who say they don’t know people on their hall, whereas I know almost everyone in Rutherford,” he said. “It turns a big university into something smaller.”

Sheats said the move presents particular obstacles to how she does her job as live-in dean.

“It’s very nice, updated and modern,” Sheats said. “However, the challenge will be maintaining the cohesiveness of the FRC community, because it is such a large community and we’ll only make up a small part of it. And a lot of the FRC students aren’t able to move over there.”

A double room with community bathroom in Rutherford costs $2,094 per semester — almost $1,000 less than a double room with a private bathroom in Building 1516.

With three jobs and mounting tuition bills, Bond is one of the students who won’t be able to heft the extra cost of a room in 1516.

And some might not ever be able to return to the “residential” part of Rutherford once it’s rebuilt.

“I might not even be able to come back to the new Rutherford when it’s completed because the price will have increased so much,” Bond said.

Isernhagen is one of several groups of students who have organized into groups of three to squeeze into one double room in 1516, cutting costs to make it only $200 more expensive than Rutherford.

“It’s kind of like the ark,” he said. “But I have hopes that it’s going to work out.  We want it to. A lot of people can’t make it but we’ve changed the terms of the FRC Constitution so that members who don’t live in the dorm can still participate in things. Not sure exactly how it’s going to work, but we want to keep everyone together.”

Ralphel Smith, education professor and assistant director for residence life, said his colleagues decided on 1516 as a suitable replacement for an FRC home because of one important factor: Sheats’ place within the building.

“We did have some conversations about the price, but again, one of the things that came up was the faculty and administrators on the side of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences were very concerned and definitely adamant that there needed to be an apartment for the live-in dean to be there,” he said. “That was the decision maker in that decision.”

Sheats said she believes the FRC is a “resilient group” despite the decision.

Some FRC traditions, such as Cookie Night and Dean’s Teas, will continue in Building 1516.

But other things will be left behind in Rutherford — or what was once Rutherford.

“Otherford”

When University Housing shared blueprints for the new Rutherford with FRC members, many balked at the proposed changes — changes they said would fundamentally alter how FRC members interact.

Isernhagen said the plans for the new building — or as he and some students call it, “Otherford” — eliminate the central stairways and meeting areas that are essential to FRC events.

“They’re getting rid of communal bathrooms in the new Rutherford,” he said. “It sounds really weird when you’re thinking about it, but that’s just another common area where you get to see people because everyone has to go there eventually. And there’s a lot of in and out traffic, a way to say, ‘Hey, how are you?’”

Sheats similarly laments the loss of the building specialties that originally made Rutherford such an ideal spot for the college when it started ten years ago.

“Things like that are small but they make a big difference just in term of visibility,” Sheats said. “The community is not just tied to the building, but it helps people to see and interact without much effort.”

Bond said she has been impressed with communication between University architects and Rutherford residents.

“I honestly, I think it’s been great so far,” she said. “They’ve taken our thoughts and our feelings really well. One of the things we love about Rutherford is how historic it is, and they’re purposefully making it like that. They’re keeping the columns and the similar color scheme and furniture.”

And so pieces of old Rutherford may be saved: the fireplace mantles, the piano, the library collage, the ornate dentals above the stairs and on the roof.

“We’re looking at taking parts of that to incorporate it into something that we will utilize in the new building,” Smith said. “We will hopefully be able to take different aspects of Rutherford and incorporate them into the new building. We’re looking at many different aspects and talking with students about the different things that they really like about the building.”

Isernhagen said that while he’s pleased pieces of Rutherford will be preserved, he is especially upset about the destruction of things that have been deemed less important, such as the centralized staircases.

“It’s kind of part of our identity, and if we just assimilate into a new building, part of assimilation is that the minority population loses what made them — them,” he said. “We don’t need to feel like we’re appreciated, but if it’s Rutherford and you’re going to call it Rutherford, let’s make it like Rutherford. Let’s not make it a Myers mini and call it a new name.”

Building Upward

Sheats said she’ll miss the little things about her doomed home.

She’ll miss hearing the echo of the downstairs piano in the hallway and gathering with students in the front library.

“I’ll miss my really old rusty door knob,” Bond said. “They’re going to have the new doors that mechanically close. So I can’t just leave my door open. Something about the old feel of the building is comforting. So I’m not like living in a hotel.”

Isernhagen and other students have resigned themselves to fractured community life in 1516 next fall — but they still want to be there with the Rutherford Hall they know and love until the end of its life on campus.

Bond, Isernhagen and other FRC students plan to host a tailgating party on Myers quad to watch the razing and prepare for a new year of community life in 1516.

“I’m a little afraid of the unknown because I’m not sure how the community is going to work [after Rutherford’s razing],” Isernhagen said. “Rutherford feels like this nice old house that you live in with 100 of your friends. We joke about sitting in the lobby and you hear pipes with water rushing and it’s almost like it’s breathing. It’s almost like it’s alive.”