Senior Haus – A Study In Silver

“Only life can kill you.” You were alive, Senior Haus, and now you’re gone… (Image: Steer Roast 2016)

I’d like to tell you that I got a lot of work done in July. I’d like to, but I didn’t. Life dealt me one gut blow after another…

…and the worst was the news of the coming death of Senior House (or “Haus”, as more recent students and alums spelled it.)

Matthew Herper (MIT 1999, Senior House) presented the facts with far more detail and objectivity than I can muster in his Forbes article:

Grappling With Its Identity, MIT Shuts A Dorm For Misfits – Forbes

When I went to MIT, I fell into several at-risk groups: my family was low income, I was from a semi-rural community, and no one in my family had ever received a university degree. I visited several living groups during Rush/Orientation Week, and the one in which I felt most at home—in retrospect, more at home than I felt at my actual home—was Senior House.

It was the wisest decision I made for many years. I learned what it was like to live in an accepting community that nonetheless had boundaries to be respected. When I encountered such a community again, later in life, I immediately recognised it—as home.

I miss my first non-abusive home. I deeply grieve that my younger brothers and sisters will not be able to choose the home that would nurture them.

There is a campus and alumni movement to save Senior House. If you would like to add your voice to the Senior House Solidarity Movement, please visit:

Senior House Solidarity Website
Senior House Solidarity Petition

MIT administrators, you have much to answer for. (BTW, don’t bother asking me for money.)

Signed:
Sandra Fisher Lakin, SB MIT 1975 (Course 16)—Senior House 1971-74, Westgate 74-75

Fifty-plus hours of editing in April — I did it.

I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at my alma mater, MIT. Technology is still a Mother. If you didn’t attend as an undergrad, you probably don’t know about The Senior House (or Haus, as it is now called.) From the late sixties on (so far as we can tell from the alumni verbal histories) it has been the home of nonconformists on campus.

Yet, when I walked into the courtyard after forty-one years away, I had come home. The Haus was the first home I ever knew in which I found unconditional acceptance, along with gentle instruction in socially acceptable behavior (not a very high bar, in the Haus.)

Yesterday, the Lighting of the Fire ritual (opening the two-day long Steer Roast party) was not so much an exercise in nostalgia as a connection to something that started before I arrived and will continue when I am no longer here to return. Students will still celebrate spring and the coming end of the semester. The Haus will still shelter the . . . different (but still nerdly) with its unique anarchy. The Suits in the Chancellor’s office Shall Not Pass (er, prevail.)

Long live the Haus!