At the same time, the second phase of the RMP—renovations to the former fraternity houses—continues and preliminary discussions have begun on the third phase of the RMP: renovations to the Social Dorms.
Reinventing the Social Quad
“We’re all tremendously pleased with the way the Freshman Quad has worked out,” Dean of Students Ben Lieber told The Student. “The response we’ve gotten from students is wholly positive,” he said. “It’s been an unqualified success.”
Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life Torin Moore agreed with Lieber’s reaction to the first phase of the plan. “Phase one of the project has met expectations,” he said. “The buildings themselves are really beautiful. They have done what they set out to do.”
Moore indicated that the next phase of the RMP is still in the early planning stages. “There have been some preliminary conversations about what the Social Dorm portion of the campus could look like,” he said. “There are some initial pieces out there, thinking about the logistics and about how things can look architecturally.” Moore described the plan for the Social Quad as a “reconceptualization” of what is being referred to as East Campus.
Lieber and Moore both indicated that the Social Dorms would not survive in their current state. They are expected to be torn down and replaced. “This will not be a refurbishing,” Moore said.
“There’s no question that the project will take place,” Lieber explained. “There’s no question that the planning is going forward. It’s just a question of when the start date will be.”
“The tentative plan,” Lieber said, “would be to tear down half the buildings one year and the other half the next year.” The dormitories, built in the early 1960s, have seen only minor cosmetic work since their construction. Their design makes systems improvement difficult, if not impossible without tearing them down and starting over. Additionally, meeting accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act makes demolition in the style of James and Stearns Halls a necessity. “Accessibility is one of the primary reasons it has to be a tear-down,” Lieber said. “The architects have told us that it’s virtually impossible to [make them accessible] in their current configuration.” As such, Lieber said, the modular dorms, Plaza and Waldorf will likely remain in place until the completion of the East Campus renovation. “They’re certainly much less necessary now that we’re only doing two small houses at a time,” he said. “They’ll become necessary again once we begin the Social Dorm project.”
The new dorms are expected to retain suite-style housing, though built around more traditional hallways. “As we get more definitive about dates and deadlines, we’ll look to bring students into the conversation,” Moore said. “Students are going to be the ones who will be living there.”
The East Campus project will extend beyond the Social Dorms themselves. According to the College’s self-study report prepared as part of the NEASC reaccreditation project, “Replacing the Social Dorms would afford us the opportunity to site the replacement dorms and a possible academic building so as to create an east quad complementary to the campus’s other quads and the Amherst Town Common.”
“The geology building site was chosen to be an anchor for the East Campus renovations, in anticipation of tearing down and rebuilding the Social Dorms,” Lieber noted.
Lieber said that work on the former fraternity houses could continue simultaneously with the East Campus project. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he said. “The plan is to work our way through the frat houses no matter what. That’s being driven by the condition of those houses, in particular the systems in those houses.”
Moore noted that, in addition to systems refurbishment, accessibility concerns have guided the work in the fraternity houses, in particular the conversion of the Mayo-Smith House Ballroom into student rooms. “Each house is going to present its own challenges,” he said. “Mayo-Smith, until last year, had no kind of accessibility. Mayo gave us the opportunity to balance out the common space on campus and also put in rooms that are accessible.” The architectural configuration of Mayo-Smith presented challenges not seen in the other Triangle houses. Seelye and Hitchcock Houses will be able to be made accessible without making changes on the same scale. “There aren’t plans to make any major changes to common spaces there,” Moore said.
Merrill in Despair
The Merrill Science Center is seen as the most likely candidate to benefit from the upcoming capital campaign. In the NEASC re-accreditation self-study report, the College found that the building, “built in 1968, while robust and structurally sound, is at the end of the design life of its utilities infrastructure and therefore can no longer adequately support teaching and research activities.”
The faculty has formed a study committee to plan the future of Merrill. “The Merrill renovations are motivated first and foremost by the fact that the current state of the building is placing significant limitations on many scholarly and curricular projects in the sciences,” Merrill planning committee member Associate Professor of Biology Caroline Goutte said, “Most drastically, professors in the chemistry and physics department have had to shut down certain types of experiments because of inadequate infrastructure in the building.” Not only the systems, but also the age of the building is becoming a concern. “The advances in science that our students are learning about and practicing today are different from those of 40 years ago, when Merrill was built,” she added. “This is perhaps most acutely obvious in the nature of honors research theses and the scholarly work of our science faculty. While our faculty are often successful at earning equipment grants from outside sources, such modern equipment needs a building that is structurally up to date in order for it to work correctly.”
The committee is also exploring the future of the science curriculum at the College. “These days modern science seems to touch all aspects of society; in this we recognize the need to reach out to non-science majors and we would like to make the Merrill Science building more welcoming to the entire community,” Goutte said. “As we move to renovate Merrill so that it can support the latest technological advances in scientific exploration and education, we also hope to make some important changes to Merrill that will reflect changes in the way we teach and do science today. For example, the Q center—the Quantitative Skills Center—has had to occupy some make-shift space buried deep in the guts of Merrill—as it has played a more and more crucial part to successful learning, we would like to bring it front and center.”
Giving Frost a Makeover
In 2006, the Library Planning Committee, a student and faculty committee assessed the Library’s position on campus, relative to the library facilities at peer institutions and looked at the Library’s needs in the upcoming years. “The planning group concluded that the library, which was designed in the 1960s with the primary goal of housing the collection, underserves the campus community in its current form,” according to the self-study report. “Designed for print media, Frost cannot perform adequately in the information age.” The library is expected to be a possible beneficiary of funds raised in the upcoming capital campaign.
“Shortly before the winter break, we interviewed three architectural planning firms with extensive experience in library planning and selected the Boston firm of Shepley Bulfinch to work with us on this next planning phase of the project,” chair of the library committee Professor of American Studies and History Martha Sandweiss explained. “I’d stress that we are hiring this firm to help us through the planning stage. The architectural design stage will come later. The firm will be working on campus this spring trying to develop a clear assessment of the current building’s strengths, weaknesses and possibilities, looking at everything from its infrastructure and engineering systems to the ways in which it supports library programming.”
Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbot previously served as a consultant to the College as part of the early RMP planning. “Once they have a clear sense of what we have right now, we will begin working with the firm to structure a very wide consultative process with students and faculty, building on the process we began a few years ago,” Sandweiss said. “Everyone will have an opportunity to articulate their needs and desires for Frost, and everyone will have an opportunity to respond to the list of possibilities that emerges as part of the process.”
“This is an immensely complex process that requires us to think hard about how the Amherst community uses the library now and how it will use it in the future,” Sandweiss explained. “Libraries are in flux. But it has certainly become clear in recent years that the increasing digitization of data has not reduced library use or the demands on librarians.”
The Trustees of the College will decide in upcoming meetings which of the projects—continuing work on the RMP, the Merrill Science Center or Frost Library—to move forward on in the immediate future.
“We will be looking at a wide range of possibilities, including renovations and new construction,” Sandweiss said of the Library project. “Money, as always, is a piece of the equation. But I hope we can think hard, imagine what will be best, and then try to make it happen.”