Though the new Sophia Gordon Hall is widely touted for its environmental friendliness and modern design, its construction has had some unanticipated consequences for the Class of 2007.
In an unexpected twist of fate, the number of seniors living in on-campus facilities plummeted to 25 percent this year, down from 70 percent in the previous academic year.
Tufts intended for Sophia Gordon, the university's first all-senior hall, to encourage seniors to return to campus after a junior year spent either off-campus or abroad. Interest in the new residence was high, with over 75 groups of seniors applying to live in the 25 available apartments.
But for seniors, a spot in Sophia Gordon was the only situation in which they would have chosen to remain on campus.
"It was just there," said senior Joanna Rucker, who now resides off campus. "We just wanted to live there or off campus."
Following her rejection from Sophia Gordon, Rucker and her housemates, seniors Christopher O'Connor, Julie Sayre, and Sean Pezzini, launched into a last-minute hunt for an apartment.
"We were really late," Rucker said. "There weren't many houses available. The ones that were left were either further away, or not as nice. We got this house only because it came on the market at the end because the girls [who were going to live here originally] changed their mind."
Others, such as senior Michael Iannuci, did not immediately opt to live off campus but ran into roadblocks with other housing facilities.
"I applied to Latin Way and didn't get in there either," he said. "I'm now living in the same house I had last year."
Those abroad for either the spring or the entirety of their junior year were in a particularly difficult housing situation if they were not accepted to Sophia Gordon.
"I felt like being abroad [in England for the junior year], you have a much harder time," O'Connor said. "They kind of tell you information, but if you want to live in Sophia, I can't go to the meeting-I'm abroad. I have to e-mail and do all this extra work. If I didn't have friends here, I never would have found an apartment if I didn't get into Sophia."
Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman explained that seniors sometimes limit their own on-campus options, typically pursuing only single rooms in larger residence halls or in apartment-style buildings such at Hillsides and Latin Way, which places them in competition for the suites with sophomore and junior applicants.
"It is of interest that the 70 percent take rate [to on-campus housing] for seniors in the last three years was unusually high," he said. "A quarter to a third of the class living on [campus] is more typical, so this isn't as aberrant as it seems."
Retaining the senior class' presence on campus has been a perennially difficult issue, and the unanticipated consequences of Sophia Gordon have underscored this concern for the Tufts administration.
"We have always been challenged by a lack of continuity over the four-year experience," Reitman said. "The Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience [in 2002-2003] pointed that out. Seniors, with all of the experience, involvement and leadership that they bring, are an important part of the co-curriculum. I think senior class presence on the campus adds a great deal to campus life."
Despite the correlation between the unveiling of Sophia Gordon and the large drop in on-campus fourth-year students, Reitman sees the new hall as a resounding accomplishment for the university and says that time to readjust to its presence should even out the ratio between seniors living on campus and those seniors living off campus.
"Sophia Gordon Hall is a major success," he said. "The senior distribution may be a one-year phenomenon due to the excitement of the opening of the new facility."
The Tufts administration is contemplating a restructuring of the housing lottery as a means to draw more of next year's seniors to campus.
"The question for this year will be whether to do the lottery for Sophia ahead of time, as we did this year, or to do it as an integral part of the apartment/co-op lottery," Reitman said.
Regardless of the changes the university might make in the future, the administration recognizes that it can only affect seniors' housing decisions to a certain degree.
"In the end, the availability and cost of local rentals probably has a greater influence than anything we can do," Reitman said. "It is advantageous for campus life to have a strong senior class presence in the halls. On the other hand, I'm not complaining about this year's outcome. It is the first year in many that we have been able to accommodate every junior who asked to live on campus."
