St. Olaf debuts on-campus barbershop to provide haircuts, sense of community

NORTHFIELD — A new, on-campus barbershop at St. Olaf College offers Black students haircuts, braiding services and, perhaps most importantly, a place to build community.

In mid-September, the college debuted the Shop 1500, which is open Mondays for haircuts from visiting barbers who drive down from Trendz, an Apple Valley barber shop.

"It means that [Black students are] being seen on more of a larger scale," said Yolanda Pauly, a St. Olaf senior whose hair was braided there last week. "I know that I'll be back."

Braiding appointments are arranged with student braiders. The shop is working on hiring two hairstylists specializing in women's hair, too.

The project has been a labor of love, championed by two former students who saw that Black students needed somewhere to get their hair done in Northfield; the largely white, rural community about 40 minutes from the Twin Cities doesn't have such a place.

Students of color comprise about 23% of St. Olaf's student body, with international students making up an additional 11%. Three percent of students are Black.

Those alumni, Aidan Lloyd and Giovanni Green, had previously organized a pop-up barber shop in Buntrock Commons, the student center, to solve that problem. That effort grew into the Shop 1500, a permanent space on the second floor.

Lloyd, a 2024 graduate, said when he first arrived at St. Olaf he needed his natural Afro cut every two weeks: "It was definitely a struggle. I think that largely was the catalyst to come up with this idea."

Lloyd said Black barber shops were a staging ground during the Civil Rights Movement and have always been a space to connect and discuss ideas.

Though colleges often talk about diversity, "I think there's very few differences where you're actually seeing physical change," Lloyd said. The new shop "shows that the school sees students."

The barber shop, which also has a TV and a vending machine full of hair products, specializes in textured hair, but any student can get a cut there, said Jerome Covington, a student manager.

The shop aims to be convenient, he said, with haircuts for $40.

"This is a very inclusive space," Covington said. "We're trying to rebuild that sense of community here."

Covington said such spaces are especially important post-COVID 19. The pandemic left many young people disconnected, relying on digital communication instead of face-to-face conversations. He said he wants the shop to host watch parties for big games and haircare workshops, too. Recently, students stopped in to play chess, he said.

Lloyd used a work-study position in the St. Olaf marketing department and an independent study in January to formulate the idea and plan its execution. The college worked with LSE Architects — a Minneapolis-based, Black-owned firm — to design the black-and-gold room.

St. Olaf President Susan Rundell Singer said Lloyd showed up in her office not long after she started the top job 15 months ago. He'd been told the barber shop wasn't possible, but Singer and others got behind it, spending more than $200,000 to open the space, which is dedicated to former St. Olaf student and multicultural affairs director William Green.

Green, who was Black, regularly brought barbers to campus to cut Black students' hair.

Singer said the shop meets an "important community need that's tied deeply with belonging" while also offering students comfort and confidence.

"It's about change, it's about a healing act ... that allows people that had been marginalized to claim their space in the middle of campus," she said.