Due to over-enrollment at Hampshire, a group of upperclassmen volunteers will move into Tyler and Plimpton Dormitories on Monday, Sept. 7 to make room for the freshmen at Hampshire. According to Dean of Students Ben Lieber, this arrangement has happened once in the past.
“We’re simply charging Hampshire the cost of keeping those dorms open so there’s no cost to the College,” Lieber said. “We’re also not making a profit from them, but we’re meeting our own costs.”
Hampshire will also provide its own Residential Life staff in the two dorms, though Amherst custodial staff will continue to clean the buildings. It is still unclear how the students will be transported to their college every day, but Lieber believes that Hampshire will set up the same system as last time and provide a shuttle service. The Hampshire students also have the option of signing up for the Amherst meal plan in Valentine Dining Hall, but are not required to.
“My impression … is that most of them are intending to eat over at Hampshire,” Lieber said. “The arrangement would be that if they did sign up for a meal plan, it would be breakfast and dinner because they’d all be over at Hampshire during the day.”
In terms of privacy and security, Lieber said that they will be treating the two buildings as Hampshire dorms in that Hampshire ID cards will not provide access to any campus dorms and Amherst ID cards will not provide access to Plimpton or Tyler.
“Obviously, if students are invited into Amherst dorms by our students, they can come in, but in that respect, they’re really like Five College students instead of Amherst students,” he said.
However, Campus Police will still treat the area as part of their responsibility and respond to any emergency calls.
“Our intention is to treat those dormitories just like any other,” said Chief of Police John Carter. “We’re going to try to have these students become the fabric of the neighborhood just like we have with our own students. We’ve already set up communication venues with Hampshire’s Public Safety department so that anything that does concern their students that we get involved in does get shared with their Dean of Students.”
Though the students will only live on campus for the fall semester, Marsh House Resident Counselor Joe Bobman ’12 hopes that his residents will welcome the Hampshire students and believes that they will add a different dimension to the campus. He is hoping to organize a welcoming event to bring all the residents of the Hill together and will be visiting the Hampshire students once they move in on Monday.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Bobman. “One, there’ll actually be people living on the Hill. I’m really excited to get to know them and have some events with them. I didn’t get off campus very much last year, so it’s a really easy way to get away from Amherst without even going off campus.”