Why is There a Pay Phone in the Main Building?

An ancient artifact hangs next to the girls and boys bathrooms in the Main Building: a pay phone.

“We’re 19 years old and the phone has probably been here for 18 years,” Mary Folberg, Head of School, said.

The pay phone has been out of order for as long as anyone can remember.

However, students like Theo Snyder, a sophomore who has been at the school for five years, have always been aware of its existence.

“I don’t remember if it was ever used,” Snyder said, “I just remember that it was there.”

Revan Williams, a staff member and alumnus, recalls the pay phone being in service when he graduated in 2005.

“I think [it went out of service] in the interim from when I was a student to when I started working here,” Williams said, who was hired in 2012.

If the pay phone is out of order, then why is it still here?

As it turns out, mainly for historical interest.

“I thought about calling the phone company and having them come in and take it down, but I thought ‘it’s kind of a historic relic now,’” Folberg said.

David Wagstaff, the Dean of Students, voiced a similar opinion.

“It’s one of those things like an old building, you just hate to see it come down,” he said.

However, back in the early years of the school, the pay phone was regularly used.

“It was for kids to call home or if they needed to make a phone call to somebody they could,” Folberg said. “Nobody had phones. And people used to hang around at the pay phone, and there were notes up above it. The notes were phone numbers they needed to remember that their mom had gave them… Quite a lot of students used it.”

Wagstaff, whose office is located near the pay phone in the Main Building, has seen many students use it in the past.

“I remember students out there, talking into the phone, weeping at the end of their romances,” Wagstaff said. “Yelling at their parents, being yelled at by their parents, ordering pizza.”

The decrease in the pay phone’s use came with the surging popularity of cell phones.
Technology has changed so fast that it is hard to remember that pay phones were used commonly only 10 or so years ago.

“You guys are heading into a lifetime of such rapid change and that’s just one example you are going to see in this century.” Folberg said.

For Folberg, that transition has been both a blessing and a curse.

“In the old days when kids didn’t have a cell phone, I saw students much more independent from their parents,” Folberg said. “I remember when I went off to college and the only phone that I could really call home on was the pay phone in the lobby of the dorm, and so my parents were pretty lucky if they got two phone calls a month.”

In Folberg’s opinion, cell phones have decreased students’ abilities to make independent decisions.

“There is this umbilical cord between you and your parents, and that is the cell phone,” Folberg said. “So it can be a real crutch.”

A violation of school technology guidelines, the use of cell phones during class results in it being taken away.

“For those who get it taken away for opening it in class or something…maybe it could serve as a useful reminder [that they can survive without their phones],” Williams said.

The pay phone will probably never be used again.

“I suppose somebody would know how to rev it up but I don’t know what it would be used for,” Folberg said.

Wagstaff stressed the importance of keeping the pay phone in the Main Building.

“[If] we get rid of this phone, we become disenchanted with the way things once were.” Wagstaff said. “We lose our imagination to create vivid reality in the future.”