Dan Currie
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

HOUSING UMASS-BOSTON’S URBAN MISSION

I’ve always supported the public, urban mission of UMass-Boston as the commuter campus it has always been. But building dormitories takes the eye off the ball of supporting our public university’s primary mission as a commuter institution — which is sorely unappreciated enough — especially regarding transportation issues. And the whole UMB campus community suffers for that neglect — except, now, for the six percent of the student body that will be “privileged” to live in dormitories, the construction of which is the result of a university financial privatization scheme that, naturally, benefits the few at the expense of the many.

The ribbon-cutting for UMass-Boston’s first dorm

It is my understanding — from Boston City Council public hearings at which I testified against the Columbia Point housing extravaganza that was thankfully ditched along with Boston 2024 — that UMB’s “Master Plan” calls for the eventual construction of dormitory space for between 1500 and 2000 beds, total, in order that, one day, some 13 percent of the student body will be on-campus, resident students.

I assume that plenty of arguments for more on-campus housing were presented by associates of Boston’s hyper-charged real estate development interests before that maximum number was established — and that there will be many more such proposals from them in the future. But there are many good reasons why the existing master plan (in deviating from UMass-Boston’s original intent) did not re-envision Boston’s only public, research university campus becoming like BU, for example, where 75 percent of its 18,000 students live in campus housing. Yet, amid the celebrations of UMB’s first dorm opening recently, it is alarming that too few seem aware of those reasons for campus housing limitations or prepared to defend them.

Dan Currie

Written by

Independent historian, research consultant, Admissions Strategies; UMass-Boston, BA; Northeastern, MA; founding president, Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston

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