Harvard’s Houses: Transformational Learning and Living Communities

Saba Beridze ’16 (left) and Mark Yao ’16 study together in one of the newly renovated common spaces in Quincy House’s Stone Hall Learning happens everywhere on the Harvard campus, and especially in the Houses, which are teeming with stimulating programs and activities, committed tutors and other advisors, and warm and wise House Masters. Houses are places, Dean Smith explains, where people share ideas, debate politics and religion, “and live out the abstract notions they’ve read in books or learned in class in ways that shape and change their lives forever.”

The House system was created in the 1930s by President A. Lawrence Lowell, who recognized that, to get the real benefit of a college education, students must live the life of a college and be part of a community, not only a classroom, of learning.

It is this living and learning community that is the heart of the Harvard College experience, and where students are transformed—socially, intellectually, and personally.

Now, Harvard is revitalizing the Houses to meet the challenges of 21st century living and learning and to expand opportunities for students, tutors, faculty, and House Masters to interact with each other and grow.

In the two completed projects—Stone Hall in Quincy House and McKinlock Hall in Leverett House—previously underused spaces have become lounges that encourage collaboration, seminar rooms with the latest technology that support learning, and rehearsal and art rooms that spark creativity and talent. Horizontal hallways connect the traditional vertical entryways and improved dining halls foster even more conversation and debate.

At the same time, these and future renewal projects (Dunster House is underway, with Winthrop House on deck) will retain and even enhance the historic character and luster of the neo-Georgian buildings.

“It still has that classic Harvard feel, but it’s now modern and can really meet the needs of the students,” Fola Sofela ’16 said while moving into Stone Hall (formerly “Old Quincy”) in August 2013.