Harvard is in the midst of launching its own capital campaign, with the primary goal of raising money for the renovation of the Houses, administrators say. One senior FAS administrator says that the fundraising goal of the newest campaign will likely surpass records.

TIME TO SWING

A lingering question that looms over House renewal is where to house the 180 students that will be displaced by the renovation of Old Quincy. In the January press release that announced the upcoming construction in Old Quincy, Harvard said that these students could potentially live in Harvard Real Estate Services-owned buildings.

But regardless of the plans that FAS devises to accommodate residents of Old Quincy, the renovation of full Houses will force far more students from their rooms, meaning the challenge of temporary housing will likely persist throughout renewal efforts.

Yale faced a similar dilemma during its renovations.

Yale elected to construct a brand new building—a “swing space”—where students would reside during the year that their college was being renovated.

Originally the building was intended to be temporary, but Holloway says that “it’s been so successful that it’s going to be there for a long time.”

No matter how Harvard solves the issue of swing housing, Gehrke says that it will likely be detrimental to Quincy House’s sense of community.

“During those 15 months, some of our students are going to be living in swing space, and we want to make sure that the Quincy community is still unified and that the students feel that they still have a House that welcomes them and that they’re excited about,” Gehrke said in January.

Some Yale students liked the modernity and novelty of their swing space, but others brought up the difficulty of maintaining a social atmosphere that Gehrke mentioned.

“It’s not a community,” says Kevin D. Adkisson, a junior in Morse College who lived in the swing space during construction. “We didn’t really bond much as a college.”

Yale college masters attributed the lack of community to the absence of a dining hall in the swing space. “The dining hall is the lifeblood of the college,” Keil says.

During construction at Harvard, those displaced from Old Quincy will still eat in the Quincy House dining hall, located in New Quincy.

‘A SHOT OF ADRENALINE’

Keil says that the renovation of the residential colleges “really has been a shot of adrenaline for the entire college.”