In an effort to retain students who look to Boston over Tufts for a richer social life, administrators are hoping to promote dining venues as social gathering points.
"Once you're 21, why would you want to stay on campus?" junior Raphael Ferry said. "There are so many things to explore."
Whether students decide to stay on campus affects the strength of Tufts' student-based community. With many students deciding to study abroad, live off campus, or take internships in other towns, Tufts faces the challenge of maintaining a socially cohesive student body during junior and senior years.
Some area schools have countered this social shift by establishing pubs on site. Northeastern University already has one, and Harvard University has had large student demand for one of their own, according to The Boston Globe.
Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said administrators have discussed the possibility of such a meeting place. He said that the Campus Center has a liquor license, though it stopped serving alcohol in the early 1990s.
Reitman noted that Hotung, the space that acted as the pub, stopped serving alcohol because of limited student interest.
"The product was going bad." he said. "It wasn't a successful business model, and there was no outcry when it closed from students."
Patti Klos, the Director of Dining and Business Services, explained that Hotung did not thrive as a pub because so few students are of legal drinking age. "Only about 20 percent of seniors are eligible, mostly in the spring semester of their senior year," she said. "Plenty of people would show, but only for the food."
Another attempt at establishing a campus pub would probably meet with the same result, Klos said. Hotung opened in 1984, the same year President Ronald Reagan effectively raised the drinking age from 18 to 21.
Some students, however, like senior Shikha Gupta, said that an on-campus pub would be worthwhile for the students who could take advantage of it. "Students go to pubs anyway, so they might as well make it easier for us and put it right on campus and give us a place to go without having to worry about transportation," she said.
The Senior Class Council sponsors off-campus senior pub nights for $10 for students over 21, the first of which will occur this Thursday.
For students under 21, Dining Services is currently planning to make changes to the menu and food service in Hotung. Coupled with potential future renovations to the lighting and dining areas, this would hopefully make Hotung more attractive as a social hub.
"We want to improve the menu, both in quality and selection. It would have more possibility to be a late-night venue," Klos said.
Reitman, however, said that students generally are turned off from social events at places like Hotung or Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall because they serve as or are closely associated with dining halls.
"When they use the dining halls as venues for on campus events, they still feel like dining halls," junior Mika Green said. Green said it would be nice to have a separate venue used solely for socializing that would not "smell like food."
Brown and Brew, which offers select caf´ fare and a cozier environment, comes closer to attaining this balance. Like Hotung, it is also a performance space for acoustic acts.
Currently, the associate chaplains' office is located in the area above Brown and Brew. The new Interfaith Center set to open in the spring would free up this space and open up the option to expand the eatery.
For students like Green, who says she can "never find a seat [at the Brown and Brew]" but prefers its mellow atmosphere, this could be an answer to their prayers.
Both Klos and Reitman said that much renovation to the space would be necessary to make the expansion viable, and the menu might be changed to meet the new needs of the establishment.
"For me, what would really drive [Brown and Brew] is a venue that would be a social destination," said Klos. "It is a very popular spot, but use has sort of tapered off since the establishment of the Tower caf?©."
Ferry suggested that the desires of student and faculty may converge in an alcohol license for Brown and Brew, thereby creating a meeting place that would serve alcohol away from the dining halls.
"If they did that," he said, "I would definitely go. It is more social there, more conducive to just hanging out."
