Four dorms will be open for summer
Next, McCormick, EC see renovations
Undergraduates who plan to live on campus this summer will have the options of living in Random Hall, Bexley Hall, Senior House, or MacGregor Hall.
According to Senior Associate Dean for Student Life Henry J. Humphreys, various factors contributed to selecting dorms for summer housing, including determining which buildings needed the greatest number of repairs, a balance between pets and no-pets buildings, kitchen availability, suitable accommodations for conference groups, and accessibility.
McCormick Hall, Next House, and East Campus will be closed for renovations and major cleaning. According to Director of Housing Dennis Collins, McCormick will be closed for cleaning and minor renovations in preparation for its 50th anniversary next year, as there will be open houses for the occasion. In Next House, the Department of Facilities will upgrade the fire alarm and sprinkler systems.
East Campus will be undergoing the most extensive renovations, including retiling and recarpeting all of the hallways and stairwells.
“It has been open constantly for the last couple years,” said Humphreys. “We’ll be doing thorough cleaning and serious repairs that we couldn’t do in the building if residents were still there.” For example, kitchen areas in East Campus that have particles of asbestos and old tiling from the original building will see new tiling and equipment.
“We’ve been working with EC’s house government to discuss repairs,” said Collins. “There will be some furniture reupholstering, fixing radiators that don’t shut off, and repainting white walls that do not have murals.” Additionally, all room floor tiles in Bemis of the east parallel, which is the older part of East Campus, will be replaced — the rest of the rooms in the east parallel were taken care of when specific sections of East Campus were closed in the past.
The remaining dorms — Baker House, Maseeh Hall, New House, Burton-Conner, and Simmons Hall — will house programs and conferences, such as the Research Science Institute (RSI), Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES), Interphase, and student researchers from other universities working at MIT.
“We’re trying to put buildings on a three- to four-year cycle,” said Collins. “If we close some dorms in rotation each summer, we can clean, renovate, and just give the building a rest.”
Summer housing rates
This marks the third summer since MIT decided to consolidate summer housing into fewer dorms to lower costs; previously, all dormitories were open to undergraduates during the summer.
In 2011, MacGregor and East Campus were the only two buildings open for undergraduate summer housing, and only singles were available at the rates of $2,096 in East Campus and $2,347 in MacGregor. Collins, Humphreys, and the Housing Strategy Group decided to keep the rates level for undergraduates this summer, and given the dorm selection, doubles will also be available. Random and Bexley will have singles available for $2,095 and doubles for $1,851, and living in MacGregor and Senior House singles will cost $2,347, with Senior House doubles costing $2,073.
“What we realized when we were looking at the pricing was that students and conference groups were paying disproportionate fees during the summertime,” said Humphreys. “So although we usually raise the rates every year to match the housing rates for the coming fall, we decided to hold the student rates constant and raise the conference rates this year to fix the balance.” In the future, the rates should be expected to keep pace with the term housing rates each year.
Within this year’s rates, the pricing differentiation is due to the classification of dorms into three tiers based on a variety of factors. Tier 1 represents dorms with higher costs of operations and newer facilities, MacGregor and Senior House are considered Tier 2 dorms, while Random and Bexley are Tier 3.
Summer desk workers
In light of a dorm security report released in February by the Security Committee charged by Dean for Student Life Chris Colombo, Humphreys and Collins will be working over the summer to develop initial security plans specific to each dorm, so the desk worker system for this summer will work the same as the previous summer.
“The house managers of the open dorms will work with desk captains to find students to fill the shifts first,” said Collins. “Even in closed buildings, desk will be open for one eight-hour shift a day for things like receiving mail, so if we’re able to find students first for those shifts, that would be our first option.”
The summer student housing application is now online at http://housing.mit.edu/summer_guest/summer_housing_application. Students who receive summer housing will be able to move into their assignments starting May 30, with the exception of those moving into rooms occupied by graduating seniors, who will move on June 11.