Hill Hall mural seeks to show a fun side to dry living

    "Welcome to Tufts University … your home away from home!"
    This statement, found on the Office of Residential Life's (ResLife) Web site, aims to display a hospitable mood in dormitories, but four freshmen finding this element lacking in Hill Hall are looking to embellish their walls with a bit of color to better reflect a sense of community.
    Freshmen Ryan Kollar, Joshua Pearl, Theodore Lui and Justin LaTorraca are trying to create a mural on the fifth floor of freshmen-only Hill Hall, hoping to show a different side to the healthy living lifestyle designated as mandatory throughout the dorm.
    "Our idea is to enforce healthy living in terms of community bonding," Kollar said. "[The mural is] an open door … Now that you've come to Tufts, here is the invitation to explore your academic and creative potential."
    Their idea came to the attention of a Resident Assistant (RA) in Hill Hall who encouraged the students to explore the concept and begin paperwork for the proposal.
    The freshmen have made some contact with ResLife regarding the idea but have not yet submitted a formal proposal.
    Director of ResLife Yolanda King said that ResLife is still waiting for more specifics about the design before giving a response.
    Students are allowed to decorate their respective rooms following a number of safety precautions outlined by ResLife, but standards for acceptable murals are less clear. King said that the office uses an internal document to approve mural proposals on a case-by-case basis.
    Usually, King said, student murals tend to arise as a result of active community involvement and deliberation. She encouraged the group to involve more of the Hill Hall community in discussion surrounding the mural, adding that it was unusual for such a small group of students to propose an idea of this sort, particularly in a location that likely only the five or so residents of the fifth floor will see.
    Though murals do currently exist in many other dormitories, they are usually done in more communal areas like common rooms and stairwells.
     "Typically it has been a more critical mass in the building, not a handful of students deciding to do a mural," King said. "There needs to be a conversation with the residential staff to see the message they're trying to create and the impact it will have on the community."
    The procedure for creating a mural includes submitting a request and proposal to ResLife, according to King. The proposal must include a sketch and color scheme of the mural, in addition to outlining the message that it will convey. ResLife will then review the proposal with Residential Facilities to work out the logistics and give final approval.
    While the students have not finalized the design, they have a general sense of the mural's main components.
    Kollar said that the mural would actively demonstrate the idea behind a healthy living dorm. "Hopefully we can rouse support in the sense that there are a lot of other creative outlets other than situations with unhealthy choices," he said.
    LaTorraca said they hope to draw on Tufts' roots to create the mural. "The goal is to unite traditional Tufts values with more modern elements … and assimilate what the founders of the school had in mind into one image," he said.
    Last February, residents of Miller Hall came together to create a mural in the staircase of the main lobby after a drunken student defaced parts of the dorm with offensive vandalism. Residents worked with members of the Bias Education and Awareness Team (BEATBias) to turn the vandalism into a positive representation of the students of Miller Hall.
    Associate Director of ResLife Doreen Long said that community involvement was a key factor in the mural created in Miller Hall last year.
    "The way they did it in Miller was to open [the mural] up to the whole building, through 10 or 11 little pictures within the elephant, each submitted by residents," Long said.
    Long said that this sort of collaboration might be helpful in setting the Hill Hall mural in motion and may offer the group a way to get funding.
    "There might be another student group that they can work with or that will co-sponsor with them, like the [BEAT]Bias team co-sponsored the mural in Miller," Long said.