The Eclectic Clark Community
Housing designed around student interests creates a more cohesive and vibrant campus
By Tammy Griffin-Kumpey
Photos by Tammy Woodard M.A. ’98
When Residential Life and Housing Director Amy Gauthier first came to Clark in 2003, she was intrigued with the number of Clark-owned houses and apartments that sat on the periphery of campus. Although part of student housing, she felt these weren’t as connected to campus life as the traditional residence halls.
“I wanted to find a new way to incorporate them back into the campus community,” says Gauthier. The “new way” came in the form of student-designed themed housing.
Last spring, Clark students had an opportunity to choose a group of friends they wanted to live with, decide on a theme, and propose programs that they wanted to do through a special application process. A committee of students and administrators selected 19 groups from the applicants to set up themed houses on campus. Student groups in the themed housing program moved through the housing lottery sooner, giving them first dibs on the more popular places to live on campus.
“Students were coming into our office during the lottery excited about where they were going to live and excited about the programs they designed. We haven’t seen that much excitement in a long time,” says area coordinator Vicki Brown. “We got some very unique themes—ones that we were not expecting.”
Themes included art, environmental sustainability, philosophy, sexYOUality, cooking, knitting, relaxation, and the western frontier. The themes are expected to change each year with a new application process.
“I think student-defined communities are much stronger than if we defined them,” explains Gauthier, who asserts that a strong residential population is important to building a vibrant campus community. Brown says even juniors and seniors, who are not required to live on campus, embraced the new program.
Both were impressed with the variety of programs and events that the students in themed housing hosted this year. Here are just a few examples of theme houses that enhanced student life.
Gaming House
Dungeons and Dragons, anyone? Gaming House is the perfect escape from the pressures and realities of academic life. On weekends, members of this house leave the realms of the lecture halls and immerse themselves in a foray of fantasy games—like Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Star Wars—where they are the creators of bizarre kingdoms and galaxies and control the fate of the magnificent creatures they design in their minds. Others get their fix in cyberspace, challenging some remote opponent to a game connected through the Internet.
Gaming House is where you’ll find the joystick junkies, furiously tapping their controllers and battling aching wrists and carpal tunnel syndrome just to reach the next impossible level in the PlayStation or Nintendo console-game-of-the-moment. Yet despite the romantic lure of the role-playing games and the latest technology, the less exotic, old standbys are not forgotten; Chess and Risk are perennial favorites of these gaming mavens. Last semester, they hosted very successful Chess and Risk tournaments for the campus community.
“We didn’t even have enough boards for all the people who wanted to play,” says Gaming House group leader Alexander Parent ’08. “They had to bring their own.”
“Gaming House centralizes a group of us who have very similar interests,” says James Zuger ’06, who is really enjoying his residence-life experience this year.
Although Parent is not too sure of the idea, Zuger says some of the Gaming House members have been discussing taking the popular Chess tournament to a whole new level this semester. He’s envisioning a “human Chess game” on the campus green, where people stand in as the kings, queens, and pawns on a giant game board. As Zuger dreams about its potential, Parent tries to pull him back to earth as he worries aloud about the logistics of actually pulling it off. No matter what they decide, surely it will be creative and fun.
“The themed housing program works pretty well for us,” says Zuger, who has also enjoyed participating in events planned by some of the other themed houses like Anime and SexYOUality. Both Zuger and Parent agree themed housing has made life in the residence halls more exciting and enhanced campus life in general.
“I know some people complain that there isn’t a lot to do at Clark. But fun is what you make of it,” explains Zuger. “If we want to have fun on the weekends, we organize a game of D&D, or card games or watch movies together. We make our own excitement. We’re doing our own thing.”
Helping House
Helping House lends a hand Larissa Chiulli ’06, Harrison Mackler ’07, Sara Goldthwaite ’06, Christina Paciello ’06 and Meredith Courtemache ’06 have been friends since their first year at Clark. Connected by friendship and a common interest in making a difference in the community, group leader Chiulli says forming Helping House was a natural progression for them.
“We were all into community service anyway, so when we heard about the themed housing opportunity we thought, ‘Why not?’” she explains. Chiulli is also a Making a Difference scholar.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Clark students answered the call for aid by raising thousands of dollars for relief efforts. Among them were the residents of Helping House, who raised more than $6,000 toward Hurricane Katrina relief by setting up a donation center outside the dining hall. Check donations were sent directly to the American Red Cross National Disaster Relief Fund. Cash donations were made to Best Buy, which matched donations up to $2 million for the Red Cross. Mackler and Chiulli organized the efforts.
“It was probably the most influential thing we did last semester,” says Chiulli. “We were watching the news and looking at the people who were affected by Katrina. It was just awful. We really wanted to do something. That’s the essence of Helping House.”
In addition, Helping House residents assisted the organizers of two fund-raising walks—Walk Far for NAAR to benefit the National Alliance for Autism Research and the Mito What?-5K to support research on rare mitochondrial disorders in children. Mackler rallied Helping House around the Mito What?-5K fundraiser. A friend from Mackler’s hometown of Longmeadow, Mass., has a daughter with this disease and he wanted to help. At these two events, Helping House residents distributed water to runners and walkers, passed out popcorn, scooped ice cream, and had a ball manning a bounce-house set up to entertain kids while their parents participated.
This semester, Helping House residents are hoping to get involved in a Habitat for Humanity project; thinking about restoring a run-down playground located near campus on the corner of Florence and Downing streets; and planning to man the funhouse at another fundraising walk for autism.
“I can’t wait,” says Goldthwaite, the newest resident of Helping House. She moved in this semester, when Mackler left to study abroad in London. Goldthwaite is excited to be living with others who share her passion for volunteerism. “Plus it’s nice to be with friends,” she adds.
Entrepreneur House
Promoting entrepreneurial spirit When Aaron O’Hearn ’07 heard about Clark’s new themed housing program, he saw an opportunity for a unique active-learning experience and to create an entrepreneurial spirit on campus—and he took it. It would not surprise those who know O’Hearn—a real go-getter who founded the campus entrepreneurship group Initial Advantage, as well as two businesses since he transferred to Clark less than two years ago—that he would propose themed housing to promote innovation.
O’Hearn and the three other residents of Entrepreneur House—Ryan Sarazin ’08, Gregory Eisman ’08 and Nicholas Weeks ’07—wanted to create programming that would give students of all disciplines the skills and ability to sustain themselves while doing what they love. They also want to send a clear message: Entrepreneurship is everything but just business.
Entrepreneur House is strategically connected to Initial Advantage. O’Hearn says pooling their resources is crucial to running quality programming. They have also played a key role in working with Ed Ottensmeyer, dean of Clark’s Graduate School of Management, and Clark’s entrepreneur-in-residence George Gendron to develop the curriculum for Clark’s new minor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Initial Advantage planned the launch party to announce the new minor, which is specifically targeted to liberal-arts students. According to O’Hearn, it’s likely the only entrepreneurship program in the country that doesn’t have a strict management focus.
“We want to change how students think about business,” says O’Hearn. “Many students have a negative connotation toward business, sustainability and capitalism, and feel it’s not O.K. to want to make money. The environment we’re creating will show it’s O.K. to make money doing what you like, but it’s best if you’re doing what you love.”
Entrepreneur House has hosted a variety of programs this year, including networking sessions and an effective-leadership seminar. It will be collaborating with Initial Advantage this semester and holding a series of events, such as a panel discussion between a sole proprietor and a corporate giant, and seminars on team-building and innovative thinking.
“Learning entrepreneurial skills gives people the confidence and motivation to say, ‘I can make a living doing this. I don’t need to bury my passion to go to business school to become an accountant. I can do what I love and still be sustainable and support a family,’” explains O’Hearn. “Clark has turned me into a person who is comfortable saying, ‘I’m not going to go out and look for a job. I’m going to create one.’”
O’Hearn, along with Initial Advantage co-chair Zachary Zielezinski ’07, is doing just that. After raising $25,000 from a private investor for working capital, they recently launched their second company, Interactive Purchasing Solutions. The company develops and provides a customized online store for private and parochial secondary schools and programs, offering everything from textbooks, school supplies and school technology to school uniforms, branded gifts and athletic apparel. Their clients benefit from a simplified purchasing process, eliminating the headaches and high costs associated with accounting for these items in an on-site campus store. “They let us do that stuff, and we take care of everything from there,” explains O’Hearn.
Art House
For art’s sake Art House group leaders Laura DeVeber ’08 and Molly Bullock ’08 proposed an art theme house because they felt there weren’t many organized campus opportunities for non-art majors to “do art.” Neither Bullock nor DeVeber, who are global environmental studies majors, were able to get into an art course at Clark their first-year, explaining that it’s especially difficult if you’re not an art major.
“We all really enjoy doing art so we wanted to keep that in our lives,” explains Bullock. Thus Art House was founded to provide an environment for artistic expression, drawing from the different creative interests and talents among its residents. None of its eight residents is an art major.
Art House kicked off the fall semester with a Studio 114 Arts Night for the campus community. All kinds of arts and crafts were created, including a mural that is displayed on a wall in their house.
“We put up a sheet on our wall and had people paint on it,” says Bullock. “Everyone contributed to it. I love just walking past it and looking at it. It’s great.”
Art House residents proudly display the artwork created at the events in a makeshift gallery in their suite. Its events are well attended—upwards of 30 people have crammed into their small apartment for the sake of artistic expression.
“We are really happy that people outside our circle of friends come to our events,” says DeVeber. “It’s important that people feel comfortable to come and do arts and crafts here.”
Art House also sponsored a pumpkin-carving contest for Halloween. A local orchard gave them a great deal on pumpkins so they could accommodate an even bigger crowd at this event, which was held at a larger campus venue. “We roasted pumpkin seeds, had some cider, carved pumpkins, listened to a Halloween mix,” explains DeVeber.
In February, Art House hosted a Valentine-making event. About 20 people created one-of-a-kind Valentines, which were distributed through campus mail.
Currently, Art House is raising funds to bring a professional bookbinder to campus in April for a bookbinding seminar. “Bookbinding is really a specialized art—a dying craft,” explains DeVeber. They plan to bind personal journals at the seminar, which will be open to the campus community.
“The themed housing program is a great resource for students to be able to put on events,” says DeVeber.
“If students decide on the housing themes, they’re going to be much more motivated,” adds Bullock. “This has been a really positive experience for me.”
|
