Demarest Hall
Encyclopedia
Demarest Hall is a dormitory that is part of Rutgers College in New Brunswick
, New Jersey
, USA
. It is named for Reverend William Henry Steele Demarest
, who was the eleventh President
of Rutgers College from 1906 to 1924.
completely dedicated to Special Interest Housing. The dormitory offers a large, friendly and open-minded community
and also a strong and active Hall Government
. The heart of the dormitory, however, are the Special Interest
sections. Academically oriented, the sections cover the social sciences
, the humanities
and the fine art
s.
Hall Government events and programs cater to the interests of the sections and their members. The sections themselves meet weekly, typically for one hour sessions in which members lead projects focused on their Special Interest. These section projects include discussions oriented around politics
and cultural analysis
, hands-on projects tapping into the creativity of the members, and presentations on topics pertaining to the section. All of the sections are student
-run, as is the dormitory's Hall Government, allowing the students to mold and direct the sections as they choose.
Sections include:
In the late 1990's and early 2000's a number of language studies sections were among the officially funded special interest sections of the dormitory including: French
; Spanish
; and Italian
.
Sometimes, underground sections may develop from different residents in the dormitory, often being conducted out of their own rooms inside the dormitory. If there is enough support for the recognition of the section, it may become official in the dormitory and be entitled to funding from the university
.
with a weather vane
, hence the unofficial Demarest motto, "We've got a big gold cock."
Demarest originally housed only freshmen
, but older students protested. Because of its proximity to what was Neilson Football Field (which is now Records Hall and the parking deck), Demarest became the football players' dorm (until the mid 1960s) with sets of football player andirons in the two Main Lounge fireplaces indicating this status. One set of the football player andirons remain in the Main Lounge fireplace to this day, though apparently the other set was stolen between 1993 and 2004. Rumors persist, and have been partly confirmed that the stolen set of football players is now at the Rutger's Club dining establishment. While current Demarites are negotiating to retrieve the historical pieces, it is widely believed [by whom] that the football players will remain at the Rutger's Club for the foreseeable future.
In the mid 1960s, Demarest began housing Honors students. These students formed special interest sections as a way to learn from each other in informal discussion, as a relaxed, more in-depth alternative to the standard classroom lecture. Some sections were created in conjunction with academic departments, such as French, the first special-interest section, created in 1966. Some early Demarest sections included Arts and Crafts, Women's Studies, Puerto Rican Studies, and Natural History.
In the late 1970s, Demarest became an official special-interest hall, with funding from the Office of the Dean of Students; this funding was later assumed by the Bishop House Office of Residence Life, which was founded in 1980. Students ran the sections autonomously until the first time Rutgers College overbooked itself into a housing shortage and decided to implement the lottery system. Demarites had, up until then, been able to freely return to their sections year after year, but now it seemed that living in Demarest the next year would depend solely on the best lottery numbers, rather than their desire to remain active in the Demarest community.
The residents of Demarest made a deal. They would accept limited supervision from the Office of Residence Life and implement certain requirements for living in the dorm, such as required individual projects, while still reserving the major decisions, such as the establishment of sections, for Demarest residents. In return, they would receive guaranteed housing in Demarest and the right to control section membership.
The autonomy did not last. In 1987, Residence Life imposed an unprecedented degree of supervision and administrative procedures on the special interest structure. Among the changes were the enumeration of membership criteria, the reformulation of most sections along strong academic lines (Arts and Crafts, for example, became Visual Arts), and the appointment of a faculty advisor for each section. The sections were segregated, their members forced to live together in contiguous blocks of rooms. Sections were required to answer directly to Bishop House. Residence Life never directly informed Demarites of the new rules; they had to find out about them by reading an ad in the The Daily Targum
. Berni Calkins, the then-Assistant Coordinator of Residence Life, who was primarily responsible for this low point in Demarest/Bishop House diplomacy, refused to cooperate with Demarest residents or even believe that some residents had rights under the Constitution, despite repeated invitations for her to attend a Hall Government meeting to discuss the issues.
In 1989, a new Demarest populace and a mostly-new Residence Life staff, including the inimitable Anna-Marie Toto, began a less bitter relationship, including SIC, the Section Issues Committee. SIC was formed to give Demarest residents a better opportunity to tell Residence Life their concerns about section-related issues. SIC was composed of the Residence Counselor, all the section leaders, and two additional representatives from each section who had lived in Demarest for at least a year. SIC was responsible for reviewing section program proposals, drawing up section budgets, reviewing section applications (for entire sections, new and continuing), and determining the criteria and procedures for section member applications. The sections were desegregated, wounds healed, and people actually started working together.
The cooperative spirit seemed to have evaporated with Anna-Marie Toto's departure from Bishop House: Residence Life retained control over the sections, but did not fulfill its part of the original bargain. However, Dean Calkins left to be a full-time mother, and Demarest has since undergone a renaissance -- including the appointment of an official Demarest Historian position in Hall Government.
New policies were enacted in the Fall 2009 Semester to create an environment where only Demarites who are actively contributing and participating in the various sections and events will be allowed to return. This new policy while already currently in effect, will be changed slightly so that Room-Selection will occur prior to the distribution of Lottery Numbers. This change reflects a new direction for Demarest where some members who would return to the dorm only did so due to a poor lottery number. The new policy actively seeks to remove these denizens who use Demarest as back-up housing in case they get a high lottery number.
Beginning in the Fall of 2011, Demarest will be one of three residence halls at Rutgers-New Brunswick to test a new program of co-ed living environments. Students of any gender who wish to share a room with a roommate of the opposite gender may do so under this program, provided both parties select this housing option together.
The worldwide community of those who have ever lived in Demarest Hall is known as "Demarest-in-Exile."
refers to Demarest in his Pulitzer Prize
winning book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
. Diaz has said of Demarest that it "is Rutgers in the most profound way for the very reason that it is unique and special and, in some ways, seems to be outside of it."
A shot of Demarest Hall appears in The World According to Garp
, roughly an hour and a half into the movie.
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is named for Reverend William Henry Steele Demarest
William H. S. Demarest
The Reverend Dr. William Henry Steele Demarest was the eleventh President of Rutgers College serving from 1906 to 1924.-Biography:...
, who was the eleventh President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of Rutgers College from 1906 to 1924.
General information
Demarest Hall is the only Rutgers dormitoryDormitory
A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
completely dedicated to Special Interest Housing. The dormitory offers a large, friendly and open-minded community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
and also a strong and active Hall Government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
. The heart of the dormitory, however, are the Special Interest
Special Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...
sections. Academically oriented, the sections cover the social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
, the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
and the fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
s.
Hall Government events and programs cater to the interests of the sections and their members. The sections themselves meet weekly, typically for one hour sessions in which members lead projects focused on their Special Interest. These section projects include discussions oriented around politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and cultural analysis
Cultural analysis
As a discipline, cultural analysis is based on using qualitative research methods of the social sciences, in particular ethnography and anthropology, to collect data on cultural phenomena; in an effort to gain new knowledge or understanding through analysis of that data...
, hands-on projects tapping into the creativity of the members, and presentations on topics pertaining to the section. All of the sections are student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
-run, as is the dormitory's Hall Government, allowing the students to mold and direct the sections as they choose.
Sections include:
- PhilosophyPhilosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
- Creative WritingCreative writingCreative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
- Visual ArtsVisual artsThe visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
- HistoryHistoryHistory is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
/Politics - MusicMusicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
Appreciation (Currently on Probation due to the lack of interest) - Culture StudiesCultural studiesCultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
- Performing ArtsPerforming artsThe performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
- Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (Formerly LGBTQ Studies)
- Cinema Studies
- Religion & Spirituality
In the late 1990's and early 2000's a number of language studies sections were among the officially funded special interest sections of the dormitory including: French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
; Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
; and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Sometimes, underground sections may develop from different residents in the dormitory, often being conducted out of their own rooms inside the dormitory. If there is enough support for the recognition of the section, it may become official in the dormitory and be entitled to funding from the university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
.
History
Demarest Hall is a dormitory on the College Avenue campus of Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It was built during 1950 and 1951, and was named after Reverend William Henry Steele Demarest, President of Rutgers University from 1905 to 1924. Unlike the brick monoliths which comprise most of Rutgers housing, Demarest has a more handsome architecture and has a cupolaCupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
with a weather vane
Weather vane
A weather vane is an instrument for showing the direction of the wind. They are typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building....
, hence the unofficial Demarest motto, "We've got a big gold cock."
Demarest originally housed only freshmen
Freshman
A freshman or fresher is a first-year student in secondary school, high school, or college. The term first year can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves A freshman (US) or fresher (UK, India) (or sometimes fish, freshie, fresher; slang plural frosh or freshmeat) is a...
, but older students protested. Because of its proximity to what was Neilson Football Field (which is now Records Hall and the parking deck), Demarest became the football players' dorm (until the mid 1960s) with sets of football player andirons in the two Main Lounge fireplaces indicating this status. One set of the football player andirons remain in the Main Lounge fireplace to this day, though apparently the other set was stolen between 1993 and 2004. Rumors persist, and have been partly confirmed that the stolen set of football players is now at the Rutger's Club dining establishment. While current Demarites are negotiating to retrieve the historical pieces, it is widely believed [by whom] that the football players will remain at the Rutger's Club for the foreseeable future.
In the mid 1960s, Demarest began housing Honors students. These students formed special interest sections as a way to learn from each other in informal discussion, as a relaxed, more in-depth alternative to the standard classroom lecture. Some sections were created in conjunction with academic departments, such as French, the first special-interest section, created in 1966. Some early Demarest sections included Arts and Crafts, Women's Studies, Puerto Rican Studies, and Natural History.
In the late 1970s, Demarest became an official special-interest hall, with funding from the Office of the Dean of Students; this funding was later assumed by the Bishop House Office of Residence Life, which was founded in 1980. Students ran the sections autonomously until the first time Rutgers College overbooked itself into a housing shortage and decided to implement the lottery system. Demarites had, up until then, been able to freely return to their sections year after year, but now it seemed that living in Demarest the next year would depend solely on the best lottery numbers, rather than their desire to remain active in the Demarest community.
The residents of Demarest made a deal. They would accept limited supervision from the Office of Residence Life and implement certain requirements for living in the dorm, such as required individual projects, while still reserving the major decisions, such as the establishment of sections, for Demarest residents. In return, they would receive guaranteed housing in Demarest and the right to control section membership.
The autonomy did not last. In 1987, Residence Life imposed an unprecedented degree of supervision and administrative procedures on the special interest structure. Among the changes were the enumeration of membership criteria, the reformulation of most sections along strong academic lines (Arts and Crafts, for example, became Visual Arts), and the appointment of a faculty advisor for each section. The sections were segregated, their members forced to live together in contiguous blocks of rooms. Sections were required to answer directly to Bishop House. Residence Life never directly informed Demarites of the new rules; they had to find out about them by reading an ad in the The Daily Targum
The Daily Targum
The Daily Targum is the official student newspaper of Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey. Founded in 1869, it is the second-oldest collegiate newspaper in the United States. The Daily Targum is student written and managed, and boasts a circulation of 18,000...
. Berni Calkins, the then-Assistant Coordinator of Residence Life, who was primarily responsible for this low point in Demarest/Bishop House diplomacy, refused to cooperate with Demarest residents or even believe that some residents had rights under the Constitution, despite repeated invitations for her to attend a Hall Government meeting to discuss the issues.
In 1989, a new Demarest populace and a mostly-new Residence Life staff, including the inimitable Anna-Marie Toto, began a less bitter relationship, including SIC, the Section Issues Committee. SIC was formed to give Demarest residents a better opportunity to tell Residence Life their concerns about section-related issues. SIC was composed of the Residence Counselor, all the section leaders, and two additional representatives from each section who had lived in Demarest for at least a year. SIC was responsible for reviewing section program proposals, drawing up section budgets, reviewing section applications (for entire sections, new and continuing), and determining the criteria and procedures for section member applications. The sections were desegregated, wounds healed, and people actually started working together.
The cooperative spirit seemed to have evaporated with Anna-Marie Toto's departure from Bishop House: Residence Life retained control over the sections, but did not fulfill its part of the original bargain. However, Dean Calkins left to be a full-time mother, and Demarest has since undergone a renaissance -- including the appointment of an official Demarest Historian position in Hall Government.
New policies were enacted in the Fall 2009 Semester to create an environment where only Demarites who are actively contributing and participating in the various sections and events will be allowed to return. This new policy while already currently in effect, will be changed slightly so that Room-Selection will occur prior to the distribution of Lottery Numbers. This change reflects a new direction for Demarest where some members who would return to the dorm only did so due to a poor lottery number. The new policy actively seeks to remove these denizens who use Demarest as back-up housing in case they get a high lottery number.
Beginning in the Fall of 2011, Demarest will be one of three residence halls at Rutgers-New Brunswick to test a new program of co-ed living environments. Students of any gender who wish to share a room with a roommate of the opposite gender may do so under this program, provided both parties select this housing option together.
Favorite traditions
Demarest, known for its diverse residents and special-interest housing, hosts many events related to cultural and religious celebrations. Also, the hall is known to host several events such as in-dorm coffee houses, concerts, hall reunions, Bagels & Times (NY Times, Sunday edition), socials and themed parties.The worldwide community of those who have ever lived in Demarest Hall is known as "Demarest-in-Exile."
In popular culture
Demarest Creative Writing Section alumnus Junot DíazJunot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
refers to Demarest in his Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
winning book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling novel written by Dominican author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo...
. Diaz has said of Demarest that it "is Rutgers in the most profound way for the very reason that it is unique and special and, in some ways, seems to be outside of it."
A shot of Demarest Hall appears in The World According to Garp
The World According to Garp
The World According to Garp is John Irving's fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years.A movie adaptation of the novel starring Robin Williams was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich....
, roughly an hour and a half into the movie.
Famous former residents
- Junot DíazJunot DíazJunot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
- Christopher McCullochChristopher McCullochChristopher McCulloch , also known by the pseudonym Jackson Publick, is an American comic book and television writer, storyboard artist, and voice actor known for his work on several Tick properties and for the animated television series The Venture Bros. He authored the comic book miniseries The...
- Little-T and One Track MikeLittle-T and One Track MikeLittle-T and One Track Mike is a hip-hop duo from New Jersey, USA. It is mostly remembered for its only hit, "Shaniqua," which was popular on MTV during 2001.-History:...
- Benjamin Grossberg
External links
- http://www.demaresthall.com/
- http://www.demarest.cjb.net/
- http://www.zm.org/demarexile/