Minerva of the Month: Wold

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Michael Rosenbaum

Wold house is easily identified by its yellow coloring, which extends to the mural in the house’s foyer. Wold House is named after John Wold ‘38, who name is also on Union’s Wold Center.

Craig Efrati, Staff Writer

With the importance of the Minerva Program as a part of the Union’s social and residential experience for many students, understanding the events and culture of the House is helpful for interested students. One of Union’s Minerva Houses is the Wold House, which hosts several annual prominent events and has begun accepting applications for prospective students.  

Wold House, located in North College, is connected to Messa House opposite Richmond. From weekly meetings to events that rally many people together, Wold is for its residents a place of joy and encouragement. There are several big events that have recently taken place from Mocktail Night to Taylor Swift trivia and even a fun, de-stressing tea-drinking event during the finals week of the fall term. All of these events bring many different people and the community together as a whole, even those who are from other Minerva houses.

In the fall term, Wold hosted weekly events with therapy dogs and pizza to promote a comfortable meeting space. Fall term also saw increased participation from freshmen who were excited about the whole concept of Minerva houses. After going to many events, some students had so much fun that they planned to live in Minerva housing for next year.

The fall Mocktail Night garnered a huge crowd of over 250 people and established Wold’s presence on the map.  Following the success of the first Mocktail Night, members of Wold House decided to run a second Mocktail Night. This event was a modest success. 

The Wold Minerva functions with Co-Chair, Student Representative, Secretary, etc. For any student who really wants to get involved in the Wold Minerva, the council is willing to create additional posts on the council as this year we had a Food Chair, a Music Chair, a Social Media Chair, and a Finance Chair. 

Upperclassmen are also allowed to live in Wold Minerva starting sophomore year. The house is a mix of single and double rooms, with priority for room selection based on Minerva housing application score. Wold House has 13 single rooms and 15 double rooms. With a limit of about 50 students, Wold was the only Minerva that was at full capacity last year and is highly competitive housing due to spacious rooms and high-scale kitchen and accommodations. 

The application process for housing consists of engagement questions and then a ranking by the current co-chairs and council. One of the most sought-after areas is the “Nook” of the house which has extra large window rooms located on the 2nd and 4th floors. 

Between the events and attractions of the house as a whole, Wold House is a desirable community to be a part of. Beyond the infrastructure, the people who are part of Wold are passionate, dedicated students who work hard and also benefit from being in the center of campus. Wold is located within a short walking distance of most of the buildings on campus and offers both study rooms as well which are accessible 24/7. Wold offers many other facilities such as the Great Room or Seminar Room which are open to the whole campus and are used for a variety of reasons such as workshops, study sessions, etc.

Wold is a unique Minerva house that offers students a space to study, get together to hang out, and much more. Wold also is unique as it offers a space for innovation which might not be offered by any other community on campus. Wold is continuing to reach new heights and remains an aspiring space for students to live and get access to.