A once-empty floor of Emerson College’s Little Building is now home to Boston Architectural College (BAC) students who said they “became a family” after a month of living as a small pocket within the larger community.
In response to an enrollment shortfall, Emerson announced its one-year partnership with BAC in August. BAC, which is located nearly two miles away from Emerson in Back Bay, works with other schools within the ProArts Consortium to provide their students with dorm-style housing, as they do not have their own residence halls. Emerson’s announcement called this partnership a “mutually beneficial housing arrangement.” Emerson was able to provide a previously unoccupied floor of Little Building to 28 BAC undergraduate students, according to Christie Anglade, interim vice president and dean of campus life.
The Little Building, a 13-story and 1,035-bed residence hall on 80 Boylston Street, has single, double, and triple dorms, in addition to suites that also have single, double, and triple dorms and a shared bathroom. There are between 85 to 95 beds on each floor.
The BAC student dorms are condensed to one-half of the floor in mostly double dorms, as well as a couple of singles and one triple.
BAC students who spoke with The Beacon said the announcement that Emerson would be providing them housing was sudden. According to an email sent to students in July from the architectural college’s student life department, BAC “experienced a bit of a hiccup this summer” when securing on-campus housing for their students. Students were informed that they could be moving in less than three weeks, but a date was not confirmed at the time.
Student Life at BAC could not be reached for comment.
Emerson College said in the announcement that the partnership “aligns with Emerson’s commitment to support the broader educational community in Boston,” but BAC students expressed how they did not initially receive that support from Emerson’s staff.
“We were kind of looked at differently by the staff,” said Benton Bailey, a first-year student. “We were definitely treated a little differently than the other people staying over the summer, which felt weird, but we got used to it.”
The architectural college’s main courses began instruction on Aug. 26, meaning students had been moved in two weeks earlier than Emerson students, who moved in on Aug. 27.
“It’s weird being ‘part of the community,’ but not having that community as well,” Bailey said.
This offset in the academic calendars caused difficulties for the architectural students when building connections with Emerson students. Bailey said he wanted to attend open events and programming hosted in and around Little Building at the beginning of the semester but was already consumed by BAC coursework.
In addition to housing, Emerson provided BAC students with IDs to access laundry and dining services, but they initially came with restrictions. At first, BAC student IDs did not grant them access to Piano Row after 11 p.m., preventing them from visiting the Max up to its late closing times. According to Anglade, Emerson College made adjustments to align the access hours with the Max’s.
Relationships with students on the other floors in Little Building were also difficult to form, according to BAC students.
“I feel like we’re not as connected to the fifth floor as we could be,” said BAC freshman Jules Albino.
“We have our differences,” Anna Paula Virgen, a BAC transfer student, said.
Despite these frustrations, BAC students are beginning to settle into the commuter student routine. It takes three stops on the Green Line or a nearly 30-minute walk to get to the architectural college from Emerson. Bailey said the process of commuting to class has “made me more of an early bird person.”
While the MBTA commute doesn’t necessarily align with the typical college experience of walking through campus to get to classes, BAC students said it wasn’t a factor they considered when choosing BAC.
“Because you’re living here, you still get that experience with other people, different floors, and just the community in general.” Bailey said, “I don’t feel like I was missing out because I wasn’t looking for it,” when choosing BAC.
BAC students said they began to feel more welcome heading into the middle of the semester.
“It’s gotten better, for sure,” Bailey said. “Now, we have a relationship with the people at the front desk to get into the dining hall. They hold the door open for us when we have our big boxes for our models.”
With only 28 students and two resident assistants sharing the floor, the BAC community within Little Building is peaceful, according to the architectural students. The floor lacks a theme and decor, unlike the other floors in Little Building, which contributes to the quiet atmosphere.
Albino said that the small number has helped form a community. “We know everyone on the floor,” said Bailey. “We all have a sense of ‘hey, we’re in this together.’”