Carnegie Mellon University
July 10, 2017

We Can Hear You!

By Leslie Evans

At the beginning of the summer session on Wednesday, July 5th, I arrived 20 min. early for a 9:30 class at Wean 4708 and looked forward to some quiet time to read a book.  I joined another Osher students who was quietly reading a newspaper. A lecture was occurring in a CMU classroom at the end of the hall and a roomful of CMU students were attentively listening.  Soon two more Osher students arrived.  They noticed that there was a class and even commented that they would have to be quiet.  But saying we need to be quiet and being quiet is two different things!  I could no longer hear a word of the lecture. When another two women showed up, they talked loudly as they came down the hall and never noticed that there was a class going on.  Soon all 5 of the women who had come early were engaging in normal volume conversation. The students in sight were looking helplessly down the hall toward the disruption.

I left and found an empty table with 6 chairs around it in back of the elevator on Floor 5 in front of the Institute for Software Research.  It was only 9:15.  I shuddered to think what a poor example we were setting for the college students in that class.

“REMINDER:  If you arrive early with friends and gather in the hallways outside of the Wean Classrooms and a CMU class is in session at the end of the hallway, please consider moving your conversations to the table and chairs to the left side of the elevator (right side as you exit the elevator) outside the door for the Institute for Software Research on Floor 4.  If you’re waiting in the hallway outside Wean 4708 and 4707 for the classroom to be unlocked, please be considerate to the other classes taking place.”  Please keep your conversation at whisper level!