Current residents of West and Metcalf Halls are enjoying new furniture, wireless Internet and fresh coats of paint in their common rooms thanks to an initiative last semester from two Tufts Community Union (TCU) senators.
Senator Chas Morrison, who spearheaded the effort with fellow sophomore and senator, Shabazz Stuart, said his experiences living in Bush Hall last year alerted him to the need to reexamine common rooms on campus.
"The common space by and large was not used as much as I thought it should have been," Morrison said. "There really wasn't a single unifying space that really brought us together. In Bush, the common rooms, they really weren't up to par with the rest of the university and I thought this was really a dramatic disservice to the students."
Stuart said that last year he noticed a disparity between Tufts' dormitories and the more communal housing in the boarding school he used to attend. He likened the latter to "a system of cheap hotels to house students."
After forming an independent student group to draw attention to the issue, the Tufts Students for the Improvement of Residential Life, Stuart said the administration "essentially rebuffed" him when he first approached them with his reservations.
Stuart pressed on with the effort, working with members of the Senate's Administration and Policy Committee to survey Boston-area schools like Northeastern University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to gather information comparing their residential spaces to those of Tufts.
"What we found was a lot more thought had gone into the design of these spaces [at the other universities]," Stuart said. "It appeared that an interior designer or architect had actually sat down and said, ‘How do I make this space attractive, how do I make this space conducive to socialization?' whereas at Tufts we seem to have a theory, which is, ‘The more chairs you put in a common room, the better that common room will be.'"
After compiling his findings, Stuart enlisted the help of Morrison and Senator Sam Wallis, a sophomore, in authoring a report that the three submitted to the Senate. The Senate endorsed the report's findings and urged the administration to consider implementing the changes, working specifically with Director of Medford Facilities Ron Esposito, Executive Administrative Dean of Arts and Sciences Leah McIntosh and Director of Residential Life Yolanda King.
McIntosh said that Tufts was able to incorporate suggestions contained in Stuart's report in Metcalf and West because those dorms were already slated this summer to undergo significant structural changes, including renovations to their bathrooms.
"We were delighted to get their input," McIntosh said. "We have been evaluating and looking at common rooms over time as part of our ongoing process of looking at the dorms" in the context of large-scale reconstruction projects.
Morrison said that the administrators were receptive to the students' requests, and were cognizant of the issues' importance. "They reacted very well to it," he said. "A lot of the things we pointed out weren't big news to them. They knew that [the common rooms] were lacking in certain regards, and to their credit they really stepped up."
Stuart said that the improvements to the West and Metcalf common rooms represent the first step in a process of building trust between the students and the administration and amplifying the issue of improved residential life.
"The money came with the understanding that Metcalf and West were trial runs," he said, adding that "the administration thinks that the student body is incapable of treating furniture nicely."
Stuart continued, "As evidence they pointed to what has happened in Stratton and other residential halls across campus where furniture has been broken. Our position has been, if you make it nice, make it attractive, if you make it something we're going to be proud of, then students will treat it with greater care."
Stuart said that he began his efforts to improve dormitories by focusing on common rooms, but this is part of a broader effort to increase the amount of attention the administration pays to on-campus housing.
"We brought the campaign not only to fix the common rooms but to improve the focus on residential life on campus," said Stuart, who was not a senator last year. "I think the common rooms are one symptom of a greater problem at Tufts, which is the lack of emphasis on residential life."
Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said that the administration has begun to take a view of residential life that reflects this shift by consulting a wider range of perspectives, including those of students and decorators.
Morrison said that working to improve the aesthetic quality of common rooms across campus will help foster a sense of community by binding students to the "historic nature of the university" that distinguishes one dormitory from another.
"My biggest concern about the common areas is there is virtually nothing on the walls," he said. "There's nothing emphasizing the unique nature of every dorm. The common room in Tilton looks just like the common room in Hill. You really can't differentiate the two."
Referencing a recent Daily article that revealed that only four percent of Tufts graduates feel "very active" in alumni affairs, Morrison said improving students' residential experience could help forge stronger alumni ties with the university.
"If students feel like they're part of something that's unique [and] that has its own character and its own identity, they're much more likely to feel a greater affinity for it," he said. "Frankly, that will manifest itself way down the line in alumni donations."
