NW35 Undergraduate - Future W1

235 Albany Street

Cambridge, MA 02139

NW35 Homepage

Welcome to the developing W1 community!  Students who join W1 will be joining a small group of 50 undergraduates, two housemasters and two GRTs building the seventeenth and newest residential community at MIT.  Twelve undergraduates have already begun the process and look forward to welcoming 38 more students from across classes to complete the Founders Group, or as they are known, The Phoenix Group.

For two years the Phoenix Group will live in NW35, a new graduate dorm on Albany Street scheduled to open in August 2008.  This “incubator’ experience will allow us to try things out on a small scale – developing a set of shared values, trying and refining a governance structure, exploring dining options, developing social activities – creating the type of shared community that reflects the interests and will of the group.  Active commitment to and involvement in community building will be a central part of the W1 experience for all 50 Founders.   In addition, since we will be sharing space with a larger graduate student community at NW35, we will have a unique opportunity to develop relationships with older students from across the Institute. 

While at NW35, we will be preparing for a move in the fall of 2010 to a completely refurbished W1 [extensive renovations begin this summer].  W1 is an historic building located at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and the Charles River.  From the outside, you can recognize W1 by its distinctive green-capped towers visible from the Harvard Bridge.  On the inside, W1 is characterized by fireplaces, large wooden beams and moldings, and long, high-ceilinged corridors – a unique residential experience on the MIT campus.  Moving to W1 provides the opportunity to roll out the new community to a full house of over 400 students.  The Phoenix Group will be the leaders of that development.

We invite you to join us.  Be part of a small community committed to building, innovation, sharing, and fun. Play a unique roll in the history of MIT. 

Suzanne Flynn & Jack Carroll
Housemasters

Suzanne is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Philosophy and Linguistics.   Jack is the Founder and Principal of VOC Partners, a research company focusing on the development of effective products and user interfaces.  Their son, Alex, will be a college freshman in September.  They will move into NW35 with Joshua, a shy bearded collie, and Three, a sleep-all-day cat.