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Student Leaders Report
Student Space:
Personal and Academic
Ask any student, faculty member, or administrator what is considered the most valuable commodity at the Institute, and you are almost guaranteed to hear "space" as a response. Space to work, to play, to study, to experiment, to store, to claim as "personal"; no one has enough. It is this last use of space that is most problematic, "personal." What constitutes personal space? What makes it effective? How much is needed, for whom, and at what expense? I want to call attention to the central importance of personal space for both students and faculty at the Institute, and make a plea for an increased commitment to ensuring its existence.
Right now, the Institute is moving into a period of construction unique in its history. With ground already ceremonially broken for the new Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center, work underway on the new Simmons Hall Undergraduate Residence, and crews constructing the lower levels of the Stata Center, every member of the MIT community is more conscious of space (or lack thereof) issues. In conjunction with these exciting building projects, the influx of funds into the Capital Campaign and other large grants, such as the Microsoft I-Campus and d'Arbeloff gifts, have allowed unprecedented use of experimental teaching and learning projects.
But these projects need space, and it's still hard to come by.
Several general kinds of spaces exist at the Institute; it is not hard to identify libraries as distinct from dining halls and laboratories as distinct from athletics facilities. Each space engenders its own atmosphere, rules of behavior, and population. But while the same student might use these spaces radically differently, all may at some point be considered "personal," space that is safe, comfortable, and to which one bears a loyalty.
As noted in the President's Task Force on Student Life and Learning, MIT students have a strong loyalty to their residence groups, be it dormitories, fraternities, sororities, or independent living groups. But this loyalty is but a subset of a greater tendency to develop connections with any space that can be claimed as "personal." In order to successfully navigate through four years of an MIT education, developing a comfort with particular areas of the Institute is critical.
I would like to officially contest the claim, often made of MIT students, that undergraduates object to any change at the Institute affecting the "way things were when we arrived as freshmen." This is a claim thrown about regarding the negative (as an understatement) student response to the 2002 changes to the residence system, summer alterations to the Student Center Coffeehouse, and the camping protests protecting "the Dot," or McDermott Circle, last spring from the threat of years of pavement. These changes were indeed contested. But characterizing students' responses as overwhelmingly conservative or reactionary ignores the positions taken by students applauding changes at the Institute. For this, consider the powerfully positive student positions on the Zesiger Center, the Student Street in the Stata Center, and construction of the CopyTech branch in the Student Center.
I suggest instead, that student response is a function of personal investment in space.
Among the exciting new programs funded through the I-Campus and d'Arbeloff initiatives is Professor John Belcher's "Teaching Enabled Active Learning," or TEAL project. Leaving the exciting details of this project aside (which utilize a radical new form of teaching space and educational dynamic to more effectively teach freshman physics), let us focus instead on the particular logistical-space issue involved. After reviewing the few even potential spaces for this project (two 3,000 square foot classrooms are needed) it was determined the most promising location would be the Student Center Fifth Floor Reading Room. In return for its classroom use several hours each day, the room would be entirely renovated, and its continued use as a study space during the majority of the day would be ensured.
Student response has been mixed, though ranging from mostly ambivalent to strongly against the encroachment of academic space into the Student Center. Lest you respond with, "But isn't the fifth floor reading room already academic space?" I will parry with, "Yes, but it is space that already hundreds of students have staked as personal." More clearly, finding a space to work is not always easy at the Institute. Some students need the silence of the several libraries, some in their rooms (and living groups), some in the reading room. Many students have favorite Athena clusters, not because of the quality of computers (they are mostly comparable) but because the space of that cluster is associated with working, and is comfortable, it becomes personal space.
It is the construction of personal space, mentally and not physically, that invests members of the MIT community in the world around them.
In the case of the TEAL project, a student-held conception of space that distances "classroom" from personal space needed for study hinders student acceptance of this initiative in its suggested location. I heard of a student who will not attend LSC films, despite their wide spectrum of movie choices and low prices, simply because she cannot associate 26-100, a large lecture hall seen by most if not all freshmen, with "fun," only academics. This may sound silly, but it is a specific case of the general construction of space and personal space here at MIT.
The Task Force addresses the notion of space with an eye towards community interaction: "All programs aimed at bringing faculty and students together over academics, research, and community activities will ultimately fail if there are not enough attractive spaces for such interactions to occur." But the Task Force does not go far enough; the Fifth Floor Reading Room may indeed be the ideal temporary space for the TEAL classrooms (until the new Teaching and Learning Center is constructed), but what must be ensured in the change is that the new space can quickly become once again, personal.
In this regard, we as a community face a more challenging task: the alteration of traditional classroom space to personal space. As the Task Force calls for a greater intertwining of life and learning, utilizing dining halls and residences for educational purposes, we must not forget the opposite goal, utilizing traditional academic space for recreation and personal growth. Eventually, we may see these traditional categories of "academic" and "personal" break down, in favor simply of "space," but until then, we must actively work both to understand the need for personal space and to create space that may be used personally.
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