“Many [Dudley students] have tried the residential houses,” Dingman says, “but want something which they can create themselves.”

Having taken 10 years off after her freshman year at Harvard to play professional tennis, Erika R. de Lone ’05 returned to Harvard and lived off-campus. She was affiliated with Mather House but notes, “Everyone else was pretty much on-campus so I felt like more of an outsider. Dudley is more inclusive and a great option to have.”

Heidi J. Bruggink ’05, another student who took time off after her freshman year, has explored all the options of Harvard housing, having been in Currier House, the Co-op, and currently, off-campus housing.

“It was great coming back to Dudley,” she says, “because they’re so tiny and incredibly helpful. I think Tom Dingman knows my father’s middle name—it’s unbelievable how much he knows about everyone and he does a really good job of providing different levels of social interaction within the house.”

There are also adult students with families living as far away as Cape Cod who commute to and from the university every day, Dingman adds. For them, he explains, it is a huge relief to be affiliated with Dudley, which gives them somewhere to relax and hang out in between classes.

Dingman mentions that parents are occasionally concerned that because Harvard is so centered around residential life, off-campus students will not get the full Harvard experience.

But he brushes off these worries.

“We are very aggressive in our outreach,” he says. “It’s hard to hide in Dudley House!”

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.