”The project will allow the school to redesign its existing dormitory system, accommodate about 60 additional boarding students and add housing for 10 faculty members, according to the memo.”
I’m not sure about Taft, but according to the previous head of S23s BS, the biggest impediment to hiring new staff in an expensive area of Ct was housing. They were constantly trying to expand faculty housing.
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I could see that! Certainly, MA, CT, RI are really expensive housing markets, especially where many of the schools are….I can’t imagine buying new houses/land near Middlesex or Andover or Choate, for example..
That said, 10 new faculty to 60 students seems the right ratio, no? Doesn’t sounds like the goal is faculty housing but adding students to me, but have ZERO inside knowledge.
I think it was a way to kill two birds with one stone. If your going to go through an approval board, you might as well get everything you can out of the plan
100%
It may not be new faculty, but faculty who are living nearby, maybe with a housing stipend? Or who will now get this housing in exchange for being more available nights and weekends?
A friend’s (adult) child who worked and lived at a BS for 2 years said that faculty who live off campus are much less enthusiastic about the many tasks associated with serving a residential community. This person lived on campus and picked up a lot of that slack.
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True, that definitely could be… but with 60 new students, I would expect SOME to be new faculty to maintain ratios, and some would have to move on campus from off to oversee them.., but you are totally right, may not be ALL new…
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Did it say they were new students? It might be, but they might be shifting their day/boarding mix. I don’t know enough about the demographics of that area, but in most of the northeast, there are fewer children than there used to be. Having the ability to assemble a student body with less dependence on their own backyard would be nice!
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Good point- it’s not in a rural area like some schools (Hotchkiss eg)
It is $$ though, so maybe not enough who can pay…?
The math does make it seem like they are getting rid of most day students, given article says “600 students,” but I can’t imagine that is so, if only because of faculty kids and the fact the school is SO embedded physically in a suburb - I would think town/gown relations would be strained?
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I was curious so did some more googling!
2 NEW dorms, with 68 beds EACH, and 5 new faculty apartments will be built…for the “dedicated freshman campus”
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With baseball-resistant windows on the sides facing the baseball diamond?
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I don’t read this as adding 136 students. Freshman consolidation to a single, new location means some existing bedrooms in other dorms could become singles or absorbed into common rooms or bathrooms for better shared spaces, via renovation of the existing dorms after the freshman dorms are built.
(Aside: The faculty housing piece is key, no doubt. We just met a lovely family in a low-key New England summer destination. Both parents work at a boarding school. They live on campus, and the kids attend the school. They just bought a house in the summer location, as they don’t need (to own) a house on campus. That school will be retaining two exceptional teachers for a long time. The summer house is their retirement housing plan. And some lovely summers, too.)
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