Written by Geoffry Fowler
Since the beginning of the fall semester, Talge Hall has limited its barbershop to only dorm residents because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to student dean and junior nursing major Lesley Pheng and student barbers who formerly worked there. Now the barbershop is no longer open to non-residents, Pheng said.
The Talge barbershop was created to provide space for barbers wanting to cut hair in the dorm, said junior chemistry major Allan-Roy Sison, a student barber who can no longer cut hair there because he resides off campus. Prior to the establishment of the shop, barbers gave haircuts in their rooms, in the halls or in the laundry rooms. The shop began as a way to keep the dorm clean from unnecessary hair.
“I used to cut [hair] in the dorm all the time,” Sison said. “However, I now live in Southern Village, so it is easier for me to cut [hair] on my back patio. Also, all my fellow barber brothers are off campus, so no one is in the shop as of right now. It’s a ghost town there.”
Although off campus barbers can no longer work in Talge, they still continue to cut hair at other locations.
Jeremiah Samuel, a senior theology major and Talge barber who lives off campus, said he drives to his clients these days.
“Well, I charge a little bit more,” he said. “But that’s just because I go to them, and I need to make more since it’s one of my main jobs.”
Samuel said he does not agree with restricting the barbershop to only dorm students because barbers are cutting students’ hair at their apartments, which to him makes no difference.
“It is just in another location,” Samuel said.
Hosea Whitt, a sophomore mass communication–photography major, said, “If more barbers came back to the shop, I would definitely get my haircut there, even if I have to wear a mask.”