As part of her Take Five Scholar fifth year at the University, Hinkson conceived, designed, and installed NAUTILUS, a communal space for student wellness during the May 2024 finals week.
“We should never fall to the pressure of thinking of a university as a business where students treat it as users and consumers and takers,” she said during an April presentation to the University Libraries National Council meeting. “Instead it should be a community that you volunteer to be a part of for four years and frame it more as an opportunity to think about problems here and how to solve them.”
Hinkson, a Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major with a minor in Sustainability Studies, took advantage of the Take Five fifth year program and the Meliora Scholar $3,000 award to create NAUTILUS, and placed it in Gleason Library from May 1-18.
University Libraries Interim Dean Maurini Strub praised Hinkson for her ingenuity and student-facing problem-solving solution.
“One of the things that really excited me about this project was the intersection of everything in service of making a better, healthier experience for our students,” Strub said. “It’s using library spaces. It’s using (virtual reality headsets from) Studio X. It’s exactly the kind of thing that very much embodies the spirit of the libraries.”
Hinkson said she spent weeks conducting research on student stresses and how to best address them.
“While there are many support structures here to help students process mental health struggles and anxiety, there could be more,” she said.
“Things like stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and depression are all things students reported as affecting their academic performance and they were all increasing over those two years,” she added. “So I thought about meeting students where they are. The space that often gets used (for this) is Gleason (Library).
“It’s the only space on campus that’s open 24 hours that’s not residential. So if you’re a student and you’re trying to cram late, or study for an exam the next day and you don’t want to fall asleep in your dorm room, Gleason is your only option.”
But, as Hinkson and other students have decried, University shuttles to and from Gleason aren’t available between 2-6:30 a.m. Consequently, students must often choose to stay in Gleason all night or walk back to their rooms in the dark or in bad weather.
“It’s essentially a pressure cooker environment for a lot of students,” Hinkson said. “It’s been designed really well for collaborative work. However there isn’t really any space for students to get away without actually exiting the space.”
“That’s where this project began emerging for me,” she added. “What would it look like to create a space that lets you escape without leaving the environment?”
She struck on the idea of creating a communal pop-up space in Gleason that utilized virtual reality (VR) technology, botanics, color therapy, customizable LED lighting, pillows, and blankets.
She designed the NAUTILUS, a 4X8 acrylic and aluminum, popup that can be assembled and disassembled quickly. And she placed it in a high traffic area of Gleason Library from reading and exam weeks to commencement week – so students wouldn’t be able to miss it.
“Even if they don’t use it, anything that serves as a visual cue to rest, relax and pause is beneficial,” Hinkson said.
She hopes that NAUTILUS sparks an annual student design contest to address student stresses during the final weeks of the semester. But after its initial run, NAUTILUS will relocate to the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, a local conflict resolution, peace building and community non-profit.
