At its meeting on Monday, May 23, Dartmouth’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences considered a motion on the college’s plans for building apartment housing for undergrads north of campus at Garipay Field. College planners had “paused” their efforts after considerable pushback from faculty and from community members living in the neighborhoods near Garipay, but after several months of revisions, intend to make revised plans public in June. The faculty motion, which passed 74-16 with some 90 faculty attending the Zoom meeting, comes down against the proposal as a whole, and asks the college to hold off on further planning until the fall—a possibility the college has rejected, according to a statement below.

Here’s the motion in full:

Affirming the need for high quality student housing and having engaged the administration on multiple occasions regarding the costs and opportunity costs of the proposed development of apartment-style undergraduate housing along Lyme Road, the Committee on Priorities lacks confidence in the ongoing undergraduate housing planning process and reaffirms its opposition to the proposed development on Lyme Road and its principled objection to the erosion of the central campus as the core of the College’s Living-Learning Academic Community; we move that the pause in implementing any such development be extended through the summer and into the fall, when faculty committees will be able to offer further input on the future of undergraduate housing at Dartmouth.

In response, college spokesperson Diana Lawrence emails:

We respect the role of the faculty in this process and their perspective on this topic. Given the pressing need to refresh and update our existing residential options, and offer students the type of housing we know they want, it is important that we continue to move this process forward. This summer, Dartmouth will provide options for community members to learn about our housing proposal, both in person and remotely in order to serve those who will be off campus, and provide relevant feedback that will inform the work ahead.