Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith and Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds today updated the undergraduate community on the impact of House renewal on summer storage for future generations of students. Although summer storage will not change for the overwhelming majority of current College students, the renewal of Harvard’s House system will result in improvements that will benefit undergraduates for decades to come.
Last year, the deans announced that a section of Quincy House would serve as a test project to explore design and construction options for future systemwide renewal of the Houses. As they indicated at the time, Old Quincy is scheduled to be taken offline for 15 months (one academic year as well as the summer before and after), beginning immediately after Commencement in June 2012. During that time, Old Quincy will be physically renewed and new social and programmatic spaces will be created to better support 21st-century methods of teaching and learning in a multigenerational learning community. More details about the project and its goals, including a video of the new design, can be found on the House renewal website.
Mike Smith leads Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences with a deep commitment to undergraduate teaching, to strengthening the faculty, and to research, both fundamental and applied. Since the start of his deanship in July 2007, Smith has nurtured the development of the new School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, established a shared faculty commitment to excellence in teaching, cultivated and expanded undergraduate research and other opportunities for active learning, forged new partnerships to advance online learning, and re-envisioned the undergraduate House system for the 21st century.