FNL HomePage

Editorial Board

E-mail FNL

FNL Archives

MIT HomePage

About three years ago, we made one of those major decisions that changed both our lives: we decided to become housemasters of one of MIT's new graduate dormitories. This decision to move from the familiar confines of our single-family home in the Boston suburbs to living on the MIT campus with 120 students has been one of the best choices we have ever made.

Our decision to join the small group of faculty and staff who choose to be part of MIT's residential community wasn't made lightly. We both grew up in suburban communities and had lived in the suburbs of Boston for about 27 years. We had strong ties to the town of Winchester where we lived, and we enjoyed the privacy and relative seclusion that single-family dwellings offer. We spent time discussing the pros and cons of making such a radical change in where and how we lived, and talked with many of the current housemasters about their life styles. We recognized that deciding to live where one of us already worked long hours was going to further blur the separation between our professional and personal lives, and weighed whether such a radical change in our day-to-day lives would be positive or negative. We discussed the pros and cons of the comfortable and familiar versus the excitement, uncertainty, and challenges of becoming part of a student community.

We ultimately decided that becoming housemasters was the right choice for us. In August 2001, we moved into 224 Albany Street (a.k.a. NW30 or "The Warehouse"). This building was originally constructed very early in the 1900s, and was completely gutted in 2000-2001 for reconstruction as a graduate dorm. Because we signed up to be the dorm's first housemasters, we had the good fortune to be able to work with the architects and the MIT administration to influence the design of the building, including our own apartment, the students' rooms, and the common spaces.

Over the last year and a half, we have been frequently asked by friends and colleagues about our decision to move on to the campus as housemasters. The idea of living in a student dormitory intrigues many people and admittedly scares others. People wonder about the additional time demands of being a housemaster and the possible loss of privacy. My informal talks with the other housemasters suggest that they too are asked innumerable questions about their own choices.

The reasons we all chose to become housemasters are probably enormously varied. Our sense is that all of us have found the experience to be incredibly positive. At least for us, being housemasters has become a major aspect of our lives. It has reminded Steve of why he decided to become an academic, and has brought both of us into a larger community of students, staff, and faculty here at MIT. Some of the highlights for us include the following:

• We see an entirely different side of student life that has little to do with the research labs and departments. Our students are enormously talented and diverse, and being part of their lives is endlessly fascinating. Our involvement with them ranges from giving them mundane help (such as walking a new foreign student who has never lived away from home through the steps involved in establishing her first checking account) to counseling students on whether they made the right decision in coming to MIT in the first place. We also have an opportunity to allow students to get a better idea of what their lives might be like as university professors, by enabling them to see beyond the classroom and lab and into our behind-the-scenes life at home.
  
  
• We have come to better understand and appreciate the invaluable resources provided by the campus housing staff, maintenance personnel, desk workers at the dorms, and student health and counseling services. As faculty, we often under-value these services, and we don't recognize the extraordinary commitment and talent these people bring to the Institute. Housemasters quickly learn that the quality of residential life is crucially dependent on how well these people do their jobs.
  
  
• There are some pragmatic aspects to living on campus that shouldn't be underrated. After commuting every workday for 27 years, Steve didn't realize how much time and energy would be saved by his being able to walk to his office. And although having a backyard was nice, not having to mow the lawn and shovel the snow is even nicer.
  
  
• In our case, we decided to become housemasters after our children were adults, and we probably would have been less inclined to move to Cambridge while our children were still in school and living at home. However, many of the present housemasters do have young children, and raising their families within the dorm setting seems to work very well for them.
  
  
• On a personal level, as a couple in the "empty nest" stage of life, becoming housemasters has linked together our separate professional lives in very positive ways. The truth is that being a faculty member at MIT takes enormous amounts of time. Becoming housemasters together has made us part of the MIT community jointly at a time in our lives when each of us might have further focused on our respective careers, and has given us many opportunities to spend time working side by side in the dorm and in the larger MIT community.

Moving to the campus isn't likely to work for everyone on the faculty and their families. Our sense, however, is that there should be more options for faculty to do so, and that there would be tremendous benefits to both students and the overall community if more of us lived here.

FNL HomePage

Editorial Board

E-mail FNL

FNL Archives

MIT HomePage