Lane and Kendall After Dark: Classrooms Never Close at Hillsdale College

Written by Brennan Berryhill

It’s late afternoon, and the final classes of the day are wrapping up. Professors pack their briefcases, impart their last bit of wisdom, and go home. But the lights don’t turn off in Lane and Kendall Halls — far from it. The day is just getting started.

Students linger in their classes or trickle in from outside to reserve classrooms they want for study sessions, club meetings, lectures, or a million other purposes under the sun. In classic Hillsdale fashion, even just setting down a couple of folders is enough to “claim” the spot, and everybody respects that the room is taken.

A perk of being at a small school is that you don’t need to fret when the classroom you wanted was taken: there’s probably another one open somewhere. When you stroll down the hallways, you can look into the windows and see the rooms being used for various purposes. The following is a non-exhaustive list of what you might see in your late-night sojourn through Lane and Kendall.

Study Sessions

Perhaps the most common usage of the classrooms is for study sessions. Students keep the learning going through homework sessions well into the wee hours of the night. Sometimes it’s just a solo student with their headphones on and notes spread in front of them like a charcuterie board, grinding out their work. Other times, a group will use a classroom to put their heads together before a big test or project. With whiteboards in nearly every room, there is a handy space to draw diagrams, write out vocabulary terms, and explain key ideas.

I’ve found that classrooms are an ideal study place to complement the library. You have plenty of desk space to spread out your work if you’re dealing with a lot of books and papers at once. You also have room to stand up and pace around when you need to jolt yourself out of a rut. It’s your own large, isolated environment to get work done, often with a nice window that can prop open for fresh air.

Lectures

Look around at the bulletin boards scattered throughout the classroom halls, and you’ll find an advertisement for a special lecture or event happening in Lane. Sometimes, it’s a lecture by a faculty member. It might also be a visiting speaker, giving a talk on a subject of expertise, like Dr. Francis Su speaking on the intersection of mathematics and the liberal arts, or Dr. Carmen Bugan hosting a lecture on political poetry. You could also find a lecture hosted by a campus ministry. At times, Equip Ministries hosts their Pastors’ Forum in the large lecture halls in the basement of Lane. Frequently, students will present theses in front of faculty and their peers somewhere in Lane or Kendall. Whether it’s a large lecture hall, a tiered amphitheater setup, or a seminar-style discussion table, there will be a room to fit your lecturing needs.

Club Meetings

Numerous clubs meet in Lane and Kendall. For example, Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG) holds regular meetings in Lane. College Republicans often set up shop in the large lecture halls. The Tower Light publication will have editor meetings in the glass fishbowl area of Lane. My club, Hearthkeepers, will occasionally host themed movie nights with a full complement of snacks. The College’s foreign language departments, such as Spanish, German, and French, host foreign film series in the classrooms, as well as departmental events like poetry nights. One of the Film and Production Club’s movies, A Peculiar Set of Stairs , featured the winding staircases in Lane and Kendall as its setting. Needless to say, these halls have become a favorite gathering place for some of the many clubs on campus.

Forensics Practice

Multiple times a week, Hillsdale College’s forensics teams, Debate and Mock Trial, practice their craft in Lane Hall. If you ever hear loud chants, people in suits talking to the wall, or students striding down the hall talking about potential solvency in the second aff rebuttal, then you know you’ve stumbled upon a Mock Trial or Debate practice. Tables and chairs can be easily rearranged to mimic a courtroom or debate round setup for competitors to scrimmage.

Movie Nights

Fairly often, when you pass by a classroom, you can see the projector whirring and some sort of media playing on the screen. Lane and Kendall are great spots to kick back, take a break from work, and turn on a movie, show, or sport. I’ve seen everything from The Godfather to How to Train Your Dragon to soccer to UFC to The Office playing in classrooms as I walk by. I remember a moment where I fell out of my chair during a crazy play in one of the NFL playoff games I was watching with friends in Lane. Members of the AV team regularly check classrooms to make sure the equipment is functioning properly, so there are rarely major problems that could spoil your movie night. Some of my favorite memories with my friends have come from putting on films in Lane or Kendall.

Group Hangouts

A great feature of Lane and Kendall classrooms is that they have a lot of space! Space enough that you can get away with a massive group potluck, like some of my friends and I did at the beginning of a fall semester. We nabbed a cushy seminar room at the top floor of Kendall and brought a homemade feast to enjoy with conversation and, afterwards, a show. These kinds of meetups wouldn’t be possible in a place like the library or even the dorms, making Lane and Kendall campus favorites for hanging out with friends.

Evening Classes

Remember when I said that professors left for home before dinnertime? That’s not entirely true. Sometimes a professor will stick around for a night class in Lane or Kendall. Adventurous students can sign up for long, lecture- or seminar-style evening classes that happen typically once or maybe twice a week. If you find that you’re a late riser and really get started past 6:00 p.m., then taking one of these Lane or Kendall evening classes might be the place for you.

As I mentioned before, this list is nonexhaustive. There are Bible studies, game nights, and loads of other uses for these versatile classrooms than what I named in this list. Truly, the learning in the classrooms never stops.

Brennan Berryhill, '27, hails from Denver, Colorado, and when he isn't writing or obsessively taking notes, you can find him playing trombone, debating, or nerding out over football.

Published in May 2026

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