SN and IG Hall -- History
 SN or IG? The eternal confusion: We remember having spent a good part of our IIT days explaining why we insisted on calling ourselves SN-ites (as opposed to IG-ites) even though we lived in 'IG Hall'... so I thought it would be interesting to include a short explaination on why SN and not IG, and while I'm at it, I'll go a little into the history of the hall (as was taught to us, during our OP) and the story of the 'great wall'. Before the Hall: At the time the old campus was being built (Patel, Azad, Nehru), they didn't think to include a girls' hostel because there weren't many women in IIT. The few that did enroll, stayed in quarters (possibly close to the professors' houses). As more and more girls joined the school, they assigned a building to house some ten odd students. This is where the HMC building now stands. SN Hall: Soon this was insufficient, and the administration decided to take the plunge and build a full hostel to accomodate some 200 students. The hostel now had A, B, C, D and E blocks. The entrance lobby opened to the Scholar's Avenue and the mess was attached to the C, D & E blocks. The Hall residents even spent a large amount of their HDF (Hall Developement Fund) and built a basketball court between the two buildings (A&B were separate from C,D&E). MBM: The number of girls enrolling in IIT did not fill the hall to capacity, so the residents had the luxury of choosing rooms, as there were always a few extra. At this time, the administraters were trying to accomodate the MBM students somewhere. So they decided to house the students (predominantly men) in the A and B blocks of SN Hall. At the same time, they felt that it was 'unwise' to keep men and women in such close proximity, so they proceeded separate the two buildings in many ways. They changed the entrance lobby for the main hall, so that it opened to Salua Rd, rather than Schol's Ave (I guess the intension was to prevent SNites from accidently 'bumping' into the MBM fellows...). What was truely ridiculous, though, was that it now took twice as long to go to Veggies or other places on Schol's Ave. 'Wall': So as a matter of convenience, the residents of SN Hall cut across MBM, and students going to Harrie's periodically cut across SN. The school administration hated this- I suppose it defied their sense of moral decorum or whatever... they proceeded to build a solid 6 foot wall between SN and MBM. The then residents of SN Hall were greatly opposed to this. They felt it restricted their movement to Schol's Ave (Salua was said to be a lot less safe at night) and, more importantly, took away the basketball court from SN-ites. In 1991 (under the presidentship of Pallavi Wad) the girls broke down the beginnings of the wall that was under construction. This resulted in a lot of threats from the management, beseeching by the warden and general enthusiasm from the student body. Whatever... the wall construction was put off for a few years. IG: At about this time, the number of girls in IIT had gone up considerably. They decided to add a few blocks to the old hostel. When the blocks (F, G & H) had been completed, they also contained an enormous common room and a new mess. The director (Dr K L Chopra) also wanted a fresh foundation stone laid, and this required a new name. Thats where the name 'IG Hall' comes from... it refers to the F, G & H blocks of SN Hall, and is by no means a hostel by itself. SN and IG share the same common room, mess, entrance, budget, hall council... you name it! And Now: SN Hall (and now I'm refering to blocks C, D, E, F, G & H) is full to capacity and more with the number of girls increasing every year. A third floor was added to 'old' SN and the old mess was converted to a formal lobby and a wing of guest rooms. A six foot solid wall separates SN from MBM (this happened during the summer of '95 when the residents were vacationing) denying residents access to the basketball court. The pity is, the basketball court is not accessible to the MBM guys either, so it's actually wasting between the two buildings. Undergrads would normally stay in the IG section... but this, I believe, has been changing over the past few years... with a more even distribution of PGs and UGs in the hall. Maintained by Nayantara@virginia.edu
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