Due to an increasing lack of space for student functions and programs and the recommendations of several students and groups, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution emphasizing the need to expand the Mayer Campus Center.
The TCU Senate urged the Tufts Capital Campaign to recognize the expansion of the campus center as a fund-raising priority.
Tufts Capital Campaign is a large-scale fundraising effort that pushes to raise money for specific initiatives, such as raising the needed amount to implement need-blind admissions.
As originally envisioned, the Mayer Campus Center, built in 1985, would include a faculty dining facility, a large, multifunction space with seating for 400, and an expanded student dining area.
Construction of the campus center was planned as a four-phase project. The first stage was the campus center as it stands today. Phase II was the addition of the bookstore, and Phases III and IV, as yet uncompleted, were to include expanded student and faculty areas.
Recently, there has been renewed interest in completing the unfinished phases. In 2003, one of the recommendations of Tufts Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience was to "complete the campus center as planned as a 'town commons on campus,'" according to TCU senator and junior Ed Kalafarski, who submitted the resolution.
In the 2003 recommendation, Phase III was to include a faculty dining facility with seating for 150, an adjacent cocktail lounge and reception area, a multi-purpose room with standing room for 600 and seating for 400, and room for a centralized mail service for the campus.
In a 2001 report put together by then programming assistant alumnus Michele Shelton ('02), Phase III construction should proceed due to the lack of available space on campus.
"Due to the increased programming by student organizations, Dewick and Aidekman are no longer meeting the needs of all organizations," the report explained. "Students need an additional place to hold concerts, shows, dances, etc."
TCU President David Baumwoll is hoping to organize a meeting of TCU presidents from the past 30 years "as a possible way to get the ball rolling" and to show that construction of Phase III is still truly a priority of the undergraduate population.
"We want Phase III to be one of the items [on the Capital Campaign agenda] ... so that it becomes something for the board of trustees to focus on," Baumwoll said. The administration chooses fundraising priorities for the Capital Campaign.
Kalafarski said that undergraduates are an important driving force behind the project.
"What is significant about [the original process] was that the TCU Senate initiated the fundraising driving to get the campus center built in the first place," Kalafarski said.
In the late 1970s, senators made the construction of a new campus center a priority and demonstrated a vested undergraduate interest in the project.
Waiting 20 years for Phase III may not seem so long in comparison to how long students had to wait for Phases I and II; the original idea for a campus center was proposed in 1913 by the Dean of the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Frank Wren.
In 1934 another plan was put forth, but it was not until Feb. 1985 that the Mayer Campus Center first opened its doors.
