This is it, old buddy. The last hurrah. It’s been good while it lasted, but we’ve just got to go.

Just as I, a sophomore, have come to learn all the kinks, back rooms and personality Taylor Hall has to offer, it’s time to move on. I don’t care if you take me seriously or not, but I will miss reading phrases such as “Flush twice, it’s a long way to Prentice Café” and the word “Feceaze” carved into the back of the bathroom stall doors. I’ll miss the labyrinth that was the first floor of Taylor, with its dark, archaic photo lab and the closet-turned-Burr office.

If you’ve happened to miss the memo, despite our best attempts to plaster it all over campus, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication is finally wrapping up its move from Taylor Hall to Franklin Hall.

Anyone who has walked through the double glass doors has heard the echoes of keystrokes and ringing phones, the symptoms of a journalism program in action. If you’ve been so brave as to venture into our lair and make it out alive, or sane rather, you probably don’t get it. But then again, such niche groups as our own are very rarely understood from anyone beyond the scope of cult-like obsession.

The newsroom in Taylor has become a home base for the program. The architecture kids have their studio. The fashion kids have Rockwell. We have our newsroom. For the past 40 years, student media has centralized here.

When I visited Kent State in March 2006 during my college hunt, the newsroom was honestly one of the biggest selling points. Having been overly involved in my high school’s journalism program, I felt right at home with the frenzied nature of news, the random outbreaks of shouting and laughter, the occasional curse of the equipment – but at the end of the day, a polished, professional publication to deliver to the student body.

But the program that’s moving to the north side of campus isn’t changing. We’re still the same group of students trudging and moaning through the last few weeks of the semester, balancing the delivery of your news with our own lives and course loads. As much as we’ve ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the shiny new building we’re so thankful to finally call home, it’s still the same old, same old.

It’s true the red couches that I myself have used to catch a nap during a quiet moment and the nearly archaic white eMacs that we’d all love to kick down Blanket Hill will soon be bittersweet memories. But I have faith in our ability to sink into our new sofas, admire our sleek new machines with glazed eyes and cover every foot after foot of brand new whiteboard with even more ridiculous ramblings.

We’re one of few generations to be honored with the ability to start a completely new chapter in JMC and Kent State history. Here’s to the dawn of a new age of Kent State student media – 93 years after the first student-produced paper came off the presses. If history’s any indication, the next nine decades hold more in store than any of us can imagine.

So when they gut the current newsroom, it’ll certainly hit close to home. But then I’ll walk over to Franklin Hall, stopping at Starbucks on the way to grab a cup of coffee and look forward to making our new space someplace to call home for the next two years.

Take care, Taylor Hall. I’m sure we’ll meet again in passing.

Adam Griffiths is a sophomore information design major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater.

Contact him at [email protected].