The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution on Sunday to address the lack of on-campus housing for undergraduate mothers who want to live with their children.
The Tufts Alliance for the Advancement of Mothers (TAAM) and the Tufts American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted the resolution, and members of both groups were present while it was considered by the Senate.
The resolution, which passed 23-3-6, states that "in policy and practice, the Tufts Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) does not allow undergraduate mothers to live on campus" and "calls on the Tufts administration and ORLL to work with affected and concerned students to adequately address this pressing need."
According to the resolution, the practice of not housing mothers "negatively affects a select group of female Tufts students" by making it difficult for them to participate in on-campus activities and forcing them to take on debt to pay for off-campus housing and for transportation.
Alumna Anne Stevenson (LA '06), one of TAAM's founders, had to find housing off-campus when she was a student because she wanted to live with her son.
During the meeting, she expressed concern about the danger of living in some of the areas around Tufts. "I would feel 10 million times safer living [on campus] than anywhere else I've had to live with my son," she said.
According to Stevenson, the university does not track the number of student parents, which has made gathering accurate data difficult. She personally funded an advertisement on Facebook.com in an attempt to contact mothers at Tufts and received responses from 19 students.
She also said that she believes that there are many more who could not return to Tufts after they became pregnant due to the high price of living off campus, which includes the costs of commuting.
TAAM has attempted to discuss this issue with the administration on two occasions. Their most recent meeting was last summer, Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman and Stevenson told the Daily.
"At that meeting this summer, we talked about the possibility of having some sort of a theme house. Whether it included the toddlers living there was a question because that was not something everyone in the ... group agreed [on]," he told the Daily in an interview yesterday.
Some, he said, felt more comfortable with other off-campus living accommodations, often with relatives. "That was seen by [some] of the mothers ... as the best way to approach the situation," he said.
Reitman also stressed that he is not aware of any formal request from students for housing for mothers, but he said that a theme house, if officially proposed, could be a possible solution.
"There has never been a request made for that by a student. If there is, we would consider it," he said. Currently, several theme houses, such as the Arts House and the Crafts House, exist for students who have similar interests or needs.
Still, government-mandated safety regulations for places housing toddlers might make finding housing difficult for them, he said.
Stevenson, however, said that TAAM is not looking for a theme house. "We're not requesting a theme house. We're requesting equal access to housing," she told the Daily yesterday. She declined to specify what type of housing the group would prefer, but said that members would take what they can get. "We're asking for options, any [options]," she said.
While Reitman said that it is the responsibility of the group to make a formal request, Stevenson is disappointed by what she considers a lack of responsiveness after last summer's meeting and would like to see the administration approach on-campus parents.
"They're the only ones who have [the] access and the power to make these decisions," she said.
If the administration chooses to comply with the Senate's resolution, Tufts may join a number of schools that have housing for student parents and their children, including Endicott College, Boston University, Purdue University and Smith College, according to Stevenson.
The Senate deliberated over the resolution for over an hour. Specifically, a few attempts were made to generalize the resolution to address the housing needs of undergraduate parents, including fathers. These were met with resistance from both TCU President Mitch Robinson and TCU Vice President Harish Perkari.
"It's a women's issue and that's why I'm objecting to this change," Perkari said at the meeting.
The resolution was eventually amended, however, to include a clause addressing undergraduate fathers separately.
"There was debate about exact word choice and how [terms] should be included," sophomore and Senate Historian Neil DiBiase told the Daily. Still, all the amendments about terminology were very similar, he said.
"I think a lot of the debate was trying to provide for any possible problems that might arise in the future in regards to fathers while also focusing on the needs of this group [that was] specifically advancing for the rights of mothers," freshman Senator Callie Kolbe said in an interview with the Daily.
She said that the group of mothers agreed that the rights of fathers should be accounted for as well. According to Kolbe, however, TAAM members said they had never met a father on campus who faced the same problems.
"We therefore spent a long time trying to include fathers but also to prioritize mothers," she said.
Although the resolution passed on Sunday, Director of Residential Life Yolanda King said in an e-mail to the Daily that as of Tuesday afternoon she had not been informed about it.
"If we receive a proposal it will be reviewed and considered according to our process," she said.
-Jenna Nissan and Rob Silverblatt contributed reporting to this article.
