Camp-In

MIT students want their frisbee field

by Michelle Chihara

MIT students are fighting for their grass. That's "grass" as in "green space," which some students say MIT does not have enough of to spare.

Last week, a group of students got word via a forwarded e-mail that the university was planning to pour concrete into a lot near the intersection of Ames Street and Amherst Street in Kendall Square, in order to park "temporary faculty offices," or trailers, there. To stop the university from robbing them of that patch of grass, students camped out in a five-person tent last Sunday night. At 6 a.m. Monday, reinforcements arrived with extra sleeping bags. The students even silk-screened a T-shirt for the protest with the message MIT: TRASHING TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW. Rotating crowds of 40 to 50 students protested until 2:30 that afternoon.

The planned trailers are temporary housing for faculty who will be displaced during the renovation of a chemistry building. But the prospect of losing the lawn has miffed both undergraduates who live in nearby dorms and graduate students at the adjacent earth-sciences building. "We have nowhere else on that side of campus to play frisbee, to eat our lunch outside," says Geeta Rayal, a 20-year-old junior and one of the protest organizers. "Basically, this was the last thing we could take."

Students believe there was a failure in communication. "They're right," says Ruth Davis, communications manager for MIT's department of facilities. "We have an unprecedented building boom going on at MIT, and we don't have all the communication people in place. We will by August, when the students return, and we will work more closely with them in the future."

Building on the contested spot of lawn is now on hold. The students will have a meeting with the department of facilities this Thursday, April 27.