What’s the Deal With Holtwick?

Written and Media by Taylor Harpster.

Whether you attended the housing meetings a couple weeks ago or you did not, one question remains on the hearts and minds of all the students—what is happening to Holtwick? Is it being torn down? Or is it just being remodeled?

At the recent housing meetings, it was announced that starting in the next school year, Holtwick will not have anyone living inside. We do not know when or if students will be able to live there again. Among a lot of other small and large changes coming to the Housing Lottery and on-campus living in general, the announcement for Holtwick comes as a surprise to many.

In an attempt to gain more information on the future of Holtwick as a Residence Hall or even as a building in general, I reached out to the Coordinator of Residence Life and Housing, Naomi Brown. While she did not have specifics as to what could happen to Holtwick, mostly because it is too early to tell, she did give some light to the situation.

For the past several years, Residence Life and Facilities have recognized that Holtwick requires some changes in order to bring it up to the same level of upkeep and student satisfaction as our other buildings on campus. Because we currently have plenty of other rooms across campus, we have decided to take Holtwick offline for the time being. This will allow us to assess if there are improvements we want to make to Holtwick before we bring it back as student housing, or if we want to convert the building to other uses, or if there is another solution that arises.”

Only time will tell what is in store for Holtwick, and what the future holds for a building beloved by many. Holtwick is one of the oldest dorm buildings on campus, and thus it has quite a history. I had the opportunity to catch up with a Resident Chaplain in Holtwick, Matt Herrick, who is the third person in his immediate family to be a Resident Chaplain at Greenville University, and the second one to be a Resident Chaplain in Holtwick. Here’s a bit of our conversation:

Holtwick has been one of many residence halls in the history of GU and will go down in history with the likes of Hogue Hall and many others. In the end, Holtwick is just a small slice of the pie that is Greenville University and her grand history!