Several departments and offices have moved from cramped quarters into roomier areas this summer, capitalizing on a university goal of maximizing the efficiency of space allocation.
The Experimental College, various alumni offices, and the comparative religion and anthropology departments are among those with a new address this fall.
For the alumni departments, the summer moves brought some much-sought-after consolidation. Previously, Alumni Relations had been located at 95 Talbot Ave. (also called the Alumni House), Advancement Services at 200 Boston Ave. and Advancement Communications in Packard Hall. Fundraising and development offices were split between Boston Ave. and Packard.
Now, all of them are under one roof at 80 George St., located off of College Ave. past the Tufts gym.
"It's nice to be consolidated," Associate Director of Alumni Relations Mini Jaikumar said. "Before, we were at Alumni House and a lot of the communications staff was in Packard Hall, and so we would have to go kind of up and down for a number of things, and now everybody's in the same building and it's just easier."
The move itself went off largely without a hitch this summer. Jaikumar said that the Alumni Relations employees, for example, started moving on a Friday and were already set up in the new location by the beginning of the next work week. "Not that everything was perfect, but it was all hooked up and functional," she said.
Jaikumar said that she has been incredibly satisfied with the move, which not only consolidated a number of offices, but also gave employees more space to operate. "Alumni Relations was bursting out of our space. We didn't have enough room," she said of the old accommodations in the Alumni House. The two conference rooms in the George St. location have been particularly helpful, she said.
As Alumni Services moved out of the Alumni House, the ExCollege, previously housed in Miner Hall, moved into it.
The college moved out of Miner at the end of June and relocated temporarily to Dowling Hall until the final move to Talbot Ave. in August.
According to ExCollege Director Robyn Gittleman, Miner was too small for the college.
"We had always talked about the fact that we didn't have enough space," she said.
Now that the college has more room, she said that expansion is not out of the question.
"It gives us the opportunity to think in a way that we couldn't before, so we may have new programs [and] we may expand existing programs," Gittleman said.
In other summer moves, the comparative religion department, previously in Miner, and the anthropology department, previously in Eaton Hall, moved into a house at 126 Curtis St.
According to Executive Administration Dean of Arts and Sciences Leah McIntosh, these changes exemplify a university priority of giving departments "additional and better space for faculty."
With these moves, the philosophy department has more space in its Miner Hall home, and the comparative religion and anthropology departments have room to grow as well.
"We've been able to give them very attractive space," McIntosh said of the latter two departments.
