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C is for Cookie—and Community

Anna Palumbo, SPA/BA ’27, has a winning recipe for making her fellow first-year students feel at home in Anderson Hall

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Anna Palumbo holds up a tray of chocolate chip cookies she baked in Anderson Hall. Photo by Jeff Watts.

On a recent December afternoon, Anna Palumbo, SPA/BA ’27, crouched in front of an oven in the third-floor lounge of Anderson Hall. An intoxicating aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafted through the shared kitchen, but she remained patient.

“I always have to make sure they have a gooey center,” said Palumbo, sporting a green hoodie adorned with sequined ornaments and gold tinsel to look like a Christmas tree.

Since she arrived at AU from Lexington, Kentucky, the CLEG major has built a sweet community by baking cookies—hundreds of them—for her floormates. What has since become a weekly tradition began on September 22 when she texted the women on her floor: “If one person likes this message, I will go to Target, get those fall Pillsbury cookie things, and bake them for y’all.”

Twenty likes later, Palumbo was off to Tenleytown.

That week was particularly stressful, Palumbo recalled. The excitement of move-in day had faded, classwork had started piling up, and Palumbo could feel the pressure mounting among her fellow first-year students. While dorm living no longer felt quite so new, the faces on her floor still were.

Cookies, she thought, could bring them all together. Later that night—with only crumbs remaining—Cookie Friday was born.

“It was the perfect thing where I knew it would benefit others while it was benefitting me,” Palumbo said. “That’s where the cookie idea came [from]. I knew I wanted to bake them because there’s something so sweet about a warm cookie.”

Anna Palumbo takes a selfie with attendees at Cookie Friday.Palumbo starts baking at 7 p.m. every Cookie Friday, and anyone is invited to come by and enjoy a cookie fresh out of the oven. The dessert is a draw, but the sweet treats also spark conversations. Cookie in hand, people often hang around the lounge and chat.

“I really like that I can come in, grab a cookie, and talk,” said Belle Finegan, SIS/BA ’26. “It’s a good stress break.”

Cookie Fridays have only grown in popularity since Palumbo’s first Target run. Word has spread beyond her floor to the rest of the residence hall, and now hungry AU students from across campus have started showing up, too.

In December, Palumbo graduated from ready-to-bake dough to a Betty Crocker mix that requires eggs and butter. The last Cookie Friday before exams produced over 100 cookies—including sugar, chocolate chip, and snickerdoodle—which were devoured nearly as fast as she could bake them.

Palumbo plans to continue her winning recipe through the rest of the academic year.

“Meeting so many different people, seeing all these new faces, and getting to talk to people—it’s just so sweet,” she said. “I didn’t really think that me baking cookies was going to have that much of an impact on people.”