Harvard unveils plan to overhaul dorms

(Globe file photo/Tom Herde)
Harvard's report, the culmination of a year's work, is the first extensive look at university house life since 1969.

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff

Harvard University has a vision of a better dormitory life for future undergraduates: More space. More privacy. No more roommates squeezed into common areas.

In a wide-ranging report today, the university laid out ambitious plans to make over its 12 residential "houses," some of which have not been renovated for decades, in order to alleviate crowding, bolster amenities, and foster community among students.

Communal bathrooms, shared by an entire hall will become a thing of the past. Dorms will feature more suites with single rooms. Those who end up in double rooms should be able to fit all the furniture on the floor without erecting bunk beds or sleeping lofts, as many do now.

University officials have not committed to a timeframe for the project. But the 110-page report makes clear that overhauling the houses, seen as some of the most outdated in the Ivy League, is a necessity.

"Kudos to the deans for taking this on,'' said Matthew Sundquist, a senior and former president of the undergraduate student council, whom university officials consulted on the report. "The housing experience is a defining characteristic of Harvard.''

The report, the culmination of a year's work, is the first extensive look at university house life since 1969. Much has changed since, with more students -- 99 percent of today's undergraduates -- choosing to live on campus instead of in apartments or co-ops.

To ease overcrowding, Harvard eventually plans to build undergraduate housing across the Charles River in Allston. It's unclear how the economic downturn and the university's plummeting endowment, which already have slowed the university's sweeping expansion plans for Allston, will affect the housing initiative.

When the renovations are done, students will be treated to more communal spaces such as lounges and kitchenettes in their dorms, the report said. In a university survey last fall, 66 percent of students said they wanted better connections with their fellow residents.

Harvard will also trade in the basement squash courts of yesteryear for updated fitness rooms, game rooms, and other activity spaces for artistic pursuits such as theater and pottery.

Amenities taken for granted at most other universities, such as cable television and late-night dining, are sorely lacking at Harvard and need to be improved, the report said.

The quest for more common spaces that encourage students to interact has been a priority for Harvard President Drew G. Faust, who has formed a separate committee to look for ways to reconfigure public spaces to bring people together.

Undergraduates used to live in suites with common rooms, but many of those areas have been converted into bedrooms to accommodate more students.

The housing initiative also aims to improve the layout of dorm rooms, including the elimination of "walk-through'' housing.

Yali Miao of Lowell House lived in a "walk-through" last year: His roommate had to pass through Miao's bedroom to reach the bathroom, and Miao had to pass through his roommate's room -- which once was a common room -- to leave.

"I could not get out after he went to sleep," Miao said. "He's a light sleeper, and I didn't want to wake him up."

The report does not delve into students' individual gripes about housing, but for years they have complained of sporadic problems.

Student Paras Bhayani recalled that when he was moving into Eliot House two summers ago, the doorknob to his room came off in his hand. He marched back down five flights of stairs to get a housing official to let him in.

"It's something you expect to see in a cartoon," Bhayani said.

Last year, he said, friends in Kirkland House had to form a bailout line to dump water out their second-story window when their bathtub faucet would not shut off. The student newspaper, the Crimson, ran a tongue-in-cheek editorial likening the housing mishaps -- showers spewing blackish water, a weight room flooded with human waste, cockroaches -- to grandparents' tales of childhood hardship that builds character.

"Given how wealthy the university is, it is surprising that it's taken them so long to focus on this problem," Bhayani said.

Harvard officials say there are no widespread problems and that any incidents are dealt with quickly.

Emma Lind, who shares a common-room-turned-bedroom with a roommate in Winthrop House, said water leaked through the ceiling of her fourth-floor room, as well as the closed-off fireplace, last year during a snowstorm. Another time an e-mail to house residents instructed them not to flush the toilets because of a flood in the basement.

"These are things that are sort of inconvenient,'' Lind said. "It's not like we're languishing in filth. Harvard dorms are historic and beautiful for the most part, but reaching the age where renovations are a good idea and hopefully imminent."

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