Subject: New Housing Option for Graduate Students
To the members of the graduate student body:
We write to share exciting news [link to news story] about progress on our October 2017 commitment to expand the Institute’s graduate student housing stock and our work to respond to community recommendations from two separate graduate student housing reports.
New on-campus housing option for graduate students and families
Beginning in 2021-2022, we will start to expand west campus housing options by constructing a new building with 550 beds on the site of the West Lot parking area and Building W89. The West Lot is located between Simmons Hall and the MIT Police station (W89) on Vassar Street. Once complete, this project will fulfill our fall 2017 pledge to build at least a 500-bed residence hall and it will complete our work to identify an additional 200 on-campus permanent graduate beds.
This project presents our community with a significant benefit: graduate students and graduate student families will now have access to the convenience and independence of apartment-style living in a residence hall minutes away from the heart of campus. We are pleased to be diversifying our housing portfolio to include an option that promises to be an exciting alternative to living off-campus for many students.
Why (and how) we are making this new option a reality
The 2014 and 2018 Graduate Student Housing Working Group reports identified two pressing goals:
- Expand our housing options so that we can enable graduate students and graduate student families living off-campus to move on campus; and
- Provide MIT with more financial capital, flexibility, and bandwidth to expedite adding beds, making capital renewal improvements, and addressing deferred maintenance work in our graduate student housing system.
Our commitment to providing graduate students and graduate student families with an array of opportunities to live in vibrant MIT residential communities remains strong. Once open, this new building and the community members who call it home will be a welcome addition to west campus.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor
Martin A. Schmidt, Provost
Israel Ruiz, Executive Vice President and Treasurer