Students advocate for increased housing support for summer researchers

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution earlier this month to increase housing support for students pursuing summer research opportunities.

The resolution, which was submitted by TCU Senator Michael Zalesne, sophomore Yimin Zhang and first-year Hayley Carabello on March 8, calls for an allocation of $34,000 from the Office of the Provost to support summer housing up to the cost of $850 per summer session. This number was calculated as the per-capita cost of housing in Hill Hall per summer session, Carabello explained.

Tufts currently has two programs that aid in funding for students pursuing summer research. The Summer Scholars program provides students free housing and a stipend for rising juniors and seniors pursuing ten-week summer research projects, and the Undergraduate Research Fund allows students to request up to $450 for the entire summer to support supervised research and thesis expenses.

Zalesne, a junior, said that these funds are insufficient to meet the student demand for financial assistance for summer housing.

“The university currently is limited on Summer Scholars funding ... so we want to show them that there are people who are interested in doing research over the summer — especially those who are taking courses and would like to do part-time research but can’t be paid to do it full time,” Zalesne said. “This would be a way to encourage them to stay on campus and have more or less equitable funds to be able to get some part of compensation or housing arrangements to stay and do research over the summer.”

Carabello said that the requested increase in support for housing would come entirely from additional funding and not from the current undergraduate research budget. She emphasized that the authors of the resolution do not want to reduce the number of students who benefit from the current undergraduate research budget, but are rather hoping for an expansion of the resources available to subsidize summer housing in order to meet student need.

“There [is] always an abundance of students who are given incredible research opportunities to pursue during the summer, but the question always comes down to whether or not they can actually afford to be here, and students really shouldn’t be limited in that way,” she explained.

Sophomore Chris Kuhner is planning on staying in the area over the summer to participate in research, but he expressed concerns about finding affordable housing during the summer.

“As someone who is a financial aid student, it’s harder for me to afford off-campus housing in general or even just on-campus housing for the summer, and I have a very rigorous course schedule during the year, so it’s hard for me to participate in research during the year,” he said. “So, the only time that I can possibly do it is summer, but it’s hard for me financially to do that, so this would just be a great relief.”

Zhang emphasized that the resolution is a short-term solution to an issue that needs substantially more support in the long-run. The resolution also urges the university to revamp the Summer Scholars program to better support student research, citing a need for increased “availability, consistency and equity of student research funding.”

Carabello encouraged the university to recognize the importance of the matter.

“I just think that the university and administration in general need to realize what an issue this actually is considering how important they see research,” Carabello said. “Tufts is based on research; everyone encourages research … so it’s really important to expand it and have [students] be able to stay here over the summer if they have the opportunity to.”

Zalesne said he started looking for solutions to the problem with Yolanda King, director of the Office of Residential Life and Learning, in May 2014. King said she would allow students conducting research to stay in campus housing over the summer, he said, though he noted that this privilege is usually reserved for students taking summer courses.

He added that Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James Glaser recommended looking to the Undergraduate Research Fund, which could potentially provide the appropriate funds.

“The Office of the Provost currently funds the Undergraduate Research Fund, and if they don’t have the budget for it, we’re hoping the university can encourage an alumni or a donor to support [the Undergraduate Research Fund], because we’re only asking for $34,000,” Zalesne said.

If the resolution passes the Office of the Provost, it still needs to be determined whether students could receive the $450 that they can currently get from the Undergraduate Research Fund, as well as funds through the resolution, he said.

While the resolution authors said they originally hoped to have these changes applied by this coming summer, they are waiting on approval from the Office of the Provost.

University Provost David Harris said that while he recognizes the importance of undergraduate student research, he is not sure that the Office of the Provost should be providing the funds for this request.

“I understand that [the Office of the Provost does] provide some support for housing, which is why when I came in [to the position], I actually increased the funding for Summer Scholars so that we could support 15 more scholars a year,” he said.

He also recommended students look into other resources.

“It’s sometimes the fact that faculty have grant-funds and other resources to cover the students — because they’re employees, basically,” he added.

He emphasized that he is not opposed to the request, but that he will need to work out the details of expanding summer research funding with Program Specialist of Scholar Development Anne Moore, who manages the Undergraduate Research Fund and the Summer Scholars program, in order to decide on the best possible allocation of resources.

“We just need to figure out how to balance it against other needs and thinking long-term,” Harris explained.