FEATURE
By Emara Saez with reporting conributions by Liani Astacio
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ince the completion of Sophia Gordon Hall in 2006, Tufts University has not expanded its on-campus residence hall options, instead focusing on maximizing current residential spaces. However, with an ever-increasing student population, the failure of the Tufts administration to create new housing space has contributed to a worsening housing crisis that has had detrimental impacts on not only the student body, but also the surrounding Medford and Somerville communities. The Class of 2025, the largest group of students ever to enroll at Tufts University, arrived on campus this Fall to face a slew of issues associated with housing. As incoming first-years were preparing to arrive on campus, the Office of Residential Life and Learning notified 100 students that they would be living at the Hyatt Place hotel in Medford Square, a 30 minute walk from campus. This type of crisis is not a new phenomenon.
2 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 25, 2021
In 2007, the ORLL turned to a similar solution due to a larger-than-expected incoming class. However, that year, the Hyatt was offered as an option to rising sophomores rather than an obligation for randomly selected incoming first-years. The program failed to launch in 2007 because of a lack of interest amongst students who wanted to remain connected to campus. 14 years later, these concerns have reappeared. Although first-year students currently living at the Hyatt have access to hotel accommodations and amenities, many feel that not enough is being done to facilitate interaction between them and the Medford campus. In a written statement, Lizzie Strehle, a first-year living at the Hyatt, noted that her first few weeks as a Tufts student were especially challenging. “I had no close friends on campus, I never had an insight as to what was happening on the weekends,” she said, adding that it made her feel like she was “missing out at times.” Furthermore, according to Strehle, the housing situation for first-years at Hyatt “has stunted their social growth at Tufts.” Aside from assigning students to nearby hotels, Tufts has sought out alternate solutions to address the lack of housing, two of which are on campus. The first was their decision to purchase and convert some of Medford’s wood-frame houses to cre-
ate Community Housing (CoHo) in 2018 and 2019. To address lack of housing for first-years specifically, they decided to convert West Hall into first-year housing for the 2021-2022 school year. However, this decision was announced in April 2021, hours before sophomores were supposed to submit their housing preferences for the upcoming school year and it left many of them scrambling to adjust their plans. Throughout the implementation of these changes, Tufts has practiced “bed optimization,” the process of forcing two students into a single and forcing three students into a double, in an effort to fit as many students as possible into existing dorms. With this practice, Tufts maximizes current housing resources rather than constructing new residential spaces. In 2021, the ORLL’s ongoing project of bed optimization led to many first-years living in forced triples in rooms originally intended to be doubles, creating challenges that on-campus students feel are just as prevalent as difficulties for students placed in the Hyatt. According to a first-year student living in a forced triple in Hodgdon, they were shocked after receiving their housing assignment. “I thought that [forced triples] were really rare at Tufts… I was utterly panicking about it a few days before movein, like maybe it will ruin my whole college experience,” they said. Due to these types of housing assignments on campus, some students at the Hyatt prefer their living arrangement to forced triples. “Personally, I would rather be in the Hyatt than in a cramped dorm
