In the coming months, Hillhouse Way, a private, Choate-owned road located north of the Carl C. Icahn Center for Science, will be home to seven new faculty houses, opening up housing availability for faculty interested in living on campus. In addition, Debos House, a house on Hillhouse Way, is receiving internal renovations to improve housing conditions.
Interim Head of Student and Academic Life Ms. Katie Levesque explained that the motivation behind the new housing plans was to improve faculty living conditions and better their on-campus experience. The new houses are part of a larger effort to accommodate the rising number of new faculty members who want to live on campus.
Ms. Levesque also noted that although currently 90% of faculty live on campus, there are still a handful of faculty who live off-campus and hope to relocate on-campus as it is much more convenient. “[Living on campus] certainly facilitates me doing my job. It’s obviously easier getting to classes, my office, and all those sorts of things,” Director of Studies Mr. Kevin Rogers said. “It also provides a location to meet with students, or have my tennis team or advisees over. That makes it super convenient.” From an economic perspective, the School covers utility costs such as electricity, heating, and Wi-Fi for faculty living on-campus. Off-campus faculty are given raises to accommodate these fees.
In alignment with the School’s interest in sustainable development, the seven new houses will use electric heating systems instead of traditional gas or oil-based heating methods. Solar panels will be installed on the roofs of the houses and all the street lights will be solar-powered.
Similar to boarding students, faculty have a detailed housing placement process outlined within the Faculty Handbook. Unlike students, however, the housing process for faculty is not a lottery, but is instead dependent on a variety of factors, including the faculty’s family size, years of employment, and number of accrued housing points. These housing points are accumulated via service for the School and prior teaching experience; for instance, faculty residing in dorms receive more housing points than those who live off-campus.
“I think one of the strengths of our system is that the rules governing faculty housing are clear, fair, and transparent, so everyone understands how it works,” said Ms. Levesque. “It doesn’t mean people aren’t disappointed if they don’t get an apartment they might want, but they should understand why [and] what the factors [considered] were.”
According to Ms. Levesque, the majority of Choate faculty are expected to live and advise in a dormitory at some point during their Choate career. These assignments depend on the housing availability in a given year which determine whether faculty live in a dorm residence or serve as adjunct advisors – dorm advisers living out-of-house. Faculty are given the option to request new accomodations every spring during “housing season”, when all available homes are posted for faculty to consider. While faculty planning on staying in the same house do not need to apply again, all faculty looking to relocate must reapply to an available house.
Ms. Meghan Healey, who has been an adviser in Nichols, Squire Stanley, and Clinton Knight, reflected on her experience with the housing process. “I really like it [the faculty housing process] as a whole,” she said. “I’ve been really happy with how things have turned out, and I’ve always been aware of what’s going on throughout the process and understand the outcomes.”
With the construction of seven new faculty houses underway, the School looks to help foster a more tight-knit Choate community with more faculty living on campus.
