MassArt Student Visit to the State House

April 26, 2024 • Written by Sabrine Daunch

This past Wednesday, April 24th, students took to the state house to request more funding for our school, for the purpose of repairing and refurbishing the Tower building. They came armed with a long list of photos, quotes, and testimonies about Tower from the MassArt community. Featured below are those testimonies.

“The ceiling in the bathroom [on the 8th floor] leaks, the windows leak and make puddles on the carpet, which is torn up and duct-taped together.”
– Malden resident

“MassArt has been my home for the past 5 years… The temperature regulation is not good in the building. One room will be boiling and one will be freezing. The ADA accessibility on campus especially… needs to be fixed.”
– SIM/Photography student

“I adore MassArt and consider it a privilege to attend school at the MassArt Tower. The creative atmosphere, the community spirit, and the opportunity to pursue my passion in such a vibrant environment are aspects that I truly cherish about this institution. However, it's important to acknowledge that the MassArt Tower, despite its charm, does have its fair share of challenges…Perhaps most concerning are the structural issues that manifest during inclement weather. When it rains, the ceiling and windows on the 10th floor leak profusely, creating a disruptive and uncomfortable environment for learning and creativity.”
– Industrial Design student

“Despite these challenges, my love for MassArt remains unwavering. I believe that by acknowledging and addressing these issues, we can work together to ensure that the MassArt Tower continues to be a beacon of inspiration and innovation for generations to come.”
– Mansfield resident

“Last month I could not enter my classroom to give a presentation crucial to my grade because the vents inside had smoke coming out of them.”
– SIM student

“Tower is inhabitable in terms of heat… many of our [Animation] studios are reaching documented temperatures of 85°+… it is putting students and our expensive technological equipment in danger.”
– Oxford resident

“We heavily rely on Tower because it holds the spaces for us to take our classes, have our workspace (outside of dorms) and just build a community as a whole. Being part of our Student Government on behalf of the major, I've heard countless people complain about the heating in the building--how it is constantly much too warm in our classrooms and workspaces.”
– Animation and Creative Writing student

“I have had to navigate Tower on many occasions with a cart [as a member of] the MassArt Activities Council. [The building] is completely inaccessible to anyone needing to avoid stairs. I had to run up the stairs one floor, then go down in an elevator and open doors for [the person] who had the cart. What could have been a one person job turned into a two person job.”
– Glass student

“In the two years of being at MassArt after transferring, I have seen more complications within the Tower building than I am comfortable with. It has failed to show structural integrity, most notably due to a ceiling collapse on December 18th of last year, where an entire portion of the building’s extremities came crashing down during a storm, almost injuring one of my classmates. Since this day, I have been nervous to be within the building where I spend most of my time on campus.”
– Communication Design Student

“The leakage and structural failures of the Tower building are a danger to MassArt students, faculty, and the surrounding community.”
-- Boston resident

“It gets so cold [by my desk] multiple times in the winter my hands have gone numb and I had to stop working and leave [because] it was just too cold.”
– Illustration student

“A few weeks ago, the classroom that my social sciences course uses in on the fifth floor of the Tower building began to smell of chemicals and fire… smoke was slowly filling the room. We evacuated the room, but were only moved into the [next] classroom over, still subjected to the fumes.”
– Shrewsbury resident

“On January 22nd, around 5pm, a fire began in an abandoned office on the 7th floor… [a staff member] and I toured empty offices like this one that were left unattended, with the heating so high that when we opened the doors to assess the space, we were hit with a wall of heat… Afterwards, the smell of the fire lingered on the animation floor for weeks (despite facilities' best efforts), exposing students to that lingering smoke smell as we continued to attend our classes on that floor.”
– Animation student

“If we were able to receive proper funding, we may be able to address these issues in ways that are more beneficial for students!”
– Hopkinton resident

“This past December… I arrived on the morning of my [first semesterly Illustration] review feeling nervous and with piles of artwork that still needed to be properly organized for display. My first instinct was to head to my studio space, which is located on the 9th floor of tower building, a floor with over 200 desks shared by over 400 students between the illustration and communication design degree programs. However, when I arrived, it sounded as if a swarm of bees had taken over. There was a terrible storm that day with incredibly high winds, resulting in the windows being hit in such a way that they created this constant loud buzzing…. half the floor felt the building shake as the overhang on the side of the building collapsed… It was hard to keep organizing work when [my classmates and I] were more concerned about if the building we were currently in was going to crumble underneath us. Even more stress hit when we found out that the print lab, a resource numerous students need during reviews, had to be evacuated and shut down. The lack of a structurally sound facility genuinely made an already stressful day even more stressful for my classmates and I. My hope is that future reviews won't be accompanied by some form of disaster, but without the funds and support to allow the school to address these issues with the tower building, I can't help but be nervous that incidents like this will continue to occur.”
– Hudson resident

We sincerely hope that these testimonies will be effective in getting the funding this school needs to repair this building.