The Tisch Residential Active Citizenship Program in Haskell and Tilton Halls has gotten off to a slow start this year, as promotional setbacks forced sponsors to reevaluate its mission. As a result, many students involved in the program are confused about its goals.
The program, which is in its inaugural year, was introduced last spring by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL).
It had aimed to involve students in community-related projects and employ student Tisch Residential Leaders (TRLs) to engage freshmen living in the halls.
While its Tisch College sponsors had hoped to get enough interest to fill Haskell with students dedicated to the program, the program did not get approved soon enough to get the active citizenship option on the housing survey distributed to all incoming freshmen.
As a result, most students living in Haskell are there because they indicated interest in freshman housing, not the specific program, and some freshmen there are still unaware of its aims.
"All I know is I asked for freshman-only dorms," freshman Aaron Fu said.
"I think a lot of people hear about the program [and] think it's kind of vague," freshman Hilary Asare said.
The initial plan also included the placement of TRLs in Tilton on an experimental basis, and in its current incarnation, there are four TRLs in Haskell and two in Tilton.
But these leaders now work to promote the general concept of community involvement rather than to coordinate projects that all students involved in the program would participate in.
As such, they will serve as "mentors" to the incoming students, according to Tisch College Senior Student Programs Manager Mindy Nierenberg.
Senior Matthew Alander, a Tisch Scholar who serves as a liaison between the Tisch College and the TRLs, agreed.
"Instead of a program that students would sign up and have requirements for, [it] has become a program that is meant to give all students information that would not be readily available to them in typical dorms," he said.
While creating programs is not their main objective, new undertakings can result from the leaders' work.
"It's not one of our main priorities to do that, but we're finding that the opportunity is there," Alander said.
Nierenberg said they accomplish this by "[creating] interest in participating in civic-engagement events."
One future event to this end will be a bus tour of Medford and Somerville.
The TRLs had initially expected that students in Haskell would all be familiar with the program before moving in.
"The main idea was that students would have been applicants to our program and would have some background knowledge," sophomore TRL Shana Hurley said. "The way the housing went, that's not the case."
So now one of their main roles is getting students to realize that the program has substance.
"We were prepared to be a more supportive role and have now been switched into an active role," Hurley said.
And they have had some success. "I think it's a wonderful idea," Haskell freshman Shir Genish said of the program. "I talk to [TRLs] all the time ... I definitely don't regret being here."
Freshman Ethan Kraus also felt the program had some benefits, but suggested that there did not need to be so many TRLs.
"They aren't useless. I just think that maybe they concentrated the TRLs too much," he said. "They probably would do better with one per building."
TRLs have also noticed some success.
"The goal is basically for us to be available for freshmen if they did not know where to start," Hurley said. "It's been working, but not as effectively as we would like."
They are also optimistic about its future. "I think we can start to get the ball rolling," sophomore TRL Andrew Helms said.
Bennett Kuhn contributed reporting to this article.
