Administrators and students who are leading efforts to address a deficiency of on-campus housing for undergraduates will take their case to the Board of Trustees this weekend.
Vice President for Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Mel Bernstein will give a presentation to the Board of Trustees this weekend outlining the need for a new dorm and pressing trustees to consent to the construction of a 150-bed facility. Student Trustee Representative Jesse Levey will also address the trustees, outlining Tufts' housing problems and evaluating the short-term solutions that the University has been using to alleviate them.
Various administrative committees have identified three possible locations for a new dorm: Off the side of Hill Hall with a bridge connecting the two buildings, on Talbot Ave., next to Stratton Hall and across from Aidekman, or behind Metcalf Hall where the Start House and Alumni House are located.
Plans for a new facility, however, are still in the preliminary stages and more details need to be fine-tuned before a final proposal can be presented to the trustees for approval, according to Levey.
"We're not at the point where we're presenting a specific plan," he said. "It's very important to the student body that we get this right. We're not going to rush through something so that we end up with a sub-par facility."
Housing issues were discussed briefly at the last trustee meeting, and according to Trustee Secretary Linda Dixon, the trustees are aware of student and administrative concerns. But according to Dixon, it is the administration's responsibility to work out the details of any construction proposal.
"The administration has to figure out the way to pay for it," she said. "At some point, when a plan is in place for funding and financially supporting the building, it will be presented to the trustees for approval."
While some assessments measure the demand for on-campus housing to be at or around 300 students, spatial limitations and the varying demand for on-campus housing have led to plans for a 150-person dorm. Some people involved in the negotiations are concerned that demand for on-campus housing would drop if area apartment prices go down. In 1991, after the construction of South Hall, off-campus housing became more affordable and many students were lured away from dorms, said Dean of Academic Services and Student Affairs Kristine Dillon, who heads a student-faculty housing task force..
Administrators and students who are involved with the efforts agree that the University is taking the housing issue seriously.
"The trustees are very well aware of the problem with the housing crunch, in my opinion. I believe that the senior administration is very committed to building a new dorm," Levey said.
Funding for the new dormitory is also a major concern. Tufts is in the midst of two major construction projects: the Psychology Resource Center on the Medford/Somerville campus and the Jaharis Center in downtown Boston. These projects serve to heighten worries over the availability of money for a dorm. Plans to build a new music building on Professors' Row are also in the works, and Tufts' modest endowment means that there are limited funds available for large-scale projects.
According to Levey, however, the issue is not how many facilities are being built but how much money is being borrowed. "If we get a donor to give us a large sum of money to build a dorm, it's not so much of an issue," he said. The amount of our budget that goes to debt service is an issue. Tufts doesn't want to spend too much money paying off its debts." While a large part of the housing task force's work so far has focused on making the case for a new dormitory, it also wants to create a dialogue on the residential experience as a whole and its importance to the Tufts education. Dillon suggested that a new dormitory might feature special programming, such as the activities offered in Bridge-Metcalf and Tilton.
"I don't think we have any fixed model in mind, but we think that the residences offer an opportunity that is not fully developed yet," she said.
Graduate student housing is another issue that those behind the efforts to build a new dorm hope will be addressed in the near future. Tufts offers only 39 beds to graduates, and high housing costs in the Boston area can serve as a deterrent to prospective students.
