The Office of Residential Life announced Friday that it will give Amarna, the College's second undergraduate society, its own house at 23 E. Wheelock St.
Amarna will move into its first home at the beginning of Spring term, Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco said.
The building, which is the current home of the Robert H. Smith alcohol rehabilitation program, is across the street from Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
The house has 13 beds and space to hold programming events, but Duncan Hodge '94, one of the seven founding members of Amarna, said he is not sure how large that space is.
Hodge said having a house will give Amarna more continuity. "It's much easier to manage the organization and for the organization to define itself," he said.
The move will displace the alcohol recovery program, but Turco said her office has been looking for a new home for that program for "a number of months."
Turco said there are three people currently living in the house as part of the recovery program. These people will move to a temporary home for Spring and Summer terms and the program will be relocated to a new house with five beds next fall, she said.
ORL expects a large number of students to be on campus Spring term, Turco said, and by giving Amarna the house, ORL can maximize the number of occupied beds on campus, she said.
"A lot of things have really played out in such a way to favor this particular group at this particular time," Turco said.
ORL and the Dean of the College Office have made providing space for coed social organizations a priority, Turco said.
"I think it's indicative of the College's commitment to the whole concept of coed social organizations," Turco said.
Currently, there are about 25 requests for space on campus from various College offices, according to Director of Facilities Planning Gordie DeWitt.
DeWitt heads the Faculty Working Group, a group of administrators that looks at proposals from all the offices on campus and tries to match their needs with the available space.
But because Amarna's new home is residential space, Turco said there was not intense discussion over who would use the space.
Turco said she hopes Amarna can fill the beds in the house.
Hodge said he thinks enough members of Amarna will be able to live in the house next term to at least come close to filling it. But "being so late in the term, that's a really big challenge," he said.
Amarna founding member Christine Carter '94 sent out an electronic mail message to the rest of Amarna announcing the new house Friday afternoon.
Hodge said the group is very excited about having its own physical plant. "I think its going to make things much easier to have a place to congregate," he said.
Amarna president-elect John Strayer '96 said having a house will help make Amarna a more cohesive group and also will help define the society to the student body.
"It's hard talking about defining ourselves because in some ways we don't want to fit into a pigeonhole," Strayer said. "But we do need to present an image to the campus. Hopefully, they will start to get an idea about what we're about."
Strayer said it was hard to define Amarna at the group's first party because it was held in Tabard coed fraternity, a house that the student body already has its own images about.
"Hopefully we'll be able to build an image from scratch," Strayer said.
There will be no College renovations on the house, Turco said.
Turco said she and Dean of the College Lee Pelton had been looking for a space for Amarna since the beginning of the term.
At the beginning of the term Turco told The Dartmouth she hoped to find Amarna at least a temporary home by Spring term. Turco said Carter and Hodge were "very excited" when she told them on Friday that Amarna will be given a house.
The Robert H. Smith alcohol rehabilitation program serves as a substance-free residential hall for students who are recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.
Members of the program could not be reached for comment.
