Dean of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs Rosalind H. Williams has announced the formation of an MIT housing advisory group. Working with the MIT community, its members will take part in the update of the Institute's long-range housing plans for students, faculty and staff.
The group will consider the full range of graduate and undergraduate housing requirements and how changes-for example, in demographics or telecommunications-are likely to affect them. It will evaluate developments in the Boston/Cambridge housing markets and identify the resources necessary to provide appropriate accommodations. It will also review the ways MIT's peer institutions support their housing needs.
Professor Williams is asking the Graduate Student Council, the Undergraduate Association and other student groups to nominate students to serve on the panel with members of offices that are directly concerned with student housing issues. In addition, faculty members and housemasters will be represented. "Everyone affected by the outcome will have a voice in the process-students above all," Professor Williams said.
The group will seek guidance from the Presidential Task Force on Student Life and Learning, a panel that convened this fall to review MIT's educational mission and to define the resources needed to support it. The role of residential life in education at MIT is one of the areas the task force is considering.
"Every survey of our students and alumni/ae reveals the importance of the education that goes on outside the classroom and the formal curriculum," Professor Williams said. "What's special about MIT is the experience of participation in a community of learning, of daily interaction with people-students, faculty and staff-who share values and interests and goals. How we live and how we learn are inseparable elements of an MIT education."
The first item on the group's agenda will be to provide more housing on and near campus for graduate students. Its members will work with the graduate community to determine what these facilities should be. They will present a detailed plan for new graduate housing later this spring.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 8, 1997.
