St. Thomas professors are competing with jackhammers and bulldozers for students attention this summer, but distracting noise during summer classes is nothing new.

Theology professor Paul Wojda has grown accustomed to teaching summer classes over campus noise. Last summer, Wojda’s office windows opened up to a quad full of screaming students.

“[The incoming freshmen] would obviously be doing some kind of ice breaker. Last year it involved scream therapy.” Wojda said. “So the whole quad would just be filled with students screaming at the top of their lungs. This went on for a week.”

Wojda said this year’s construction noise is “a minor annoyance” compared to screaming freshman and racket from the sports and cheerleading camps that usually take place.

“People expect that the campus is a quiet place in the summer because everyone leaves,” Wojda said. “But it really can be just as noisy, if not noisier than the regular semesters.”

Psychology professor Jim Robinson, who teaches a class facing the quad in John Roach Center, said the noise this summer has not been an issue for him or for his students.

“We laugh about [the noise] in class,” Robinson said. “I think the subject is so fascinating that they’re not distracted by the noise,” he added.

But Robinson said the drilling and hammering could be distracting to students if it leads to “sensory overload.”

“Your mind will be trying to take in construction information while you are trying to take in information that is much more demanding,” Robinson said. “It’s easier to listen to the jackhammer than it is to listen to more demanding information.”

Graduating senior Mike St. Dennis, a student of Robinson’s, said the class is noticeably louder than those in fall and spring semesters, but “it hasn’t been too much of a nuisance.”

“There have been times during lecture where there is obviously more ambient noise,” St. Dennis said. “But in terms of being able to concentrate on a lecture it hasn’t been anything too severe.”

Wojda hypothesized that some sounds are more disruptive than others and that construction noise is relatively bearable.

“If it is the familiar sound of landscaping equipment it’s not a distraction,” Wojda said. “If it’s something unusual like a whole quad of kids screaming, then it can be distracting.”

Alex Keil can be reached at amkeil@stthomas.edu.