Throughout the week of May 14, the University will be installing seven soundproof booths on campus, located between the Goldfarb Library and the Shapiro Campus Center. These soundproof booths will allow students to take private calls, interviews and meetings on a first-come, first-served basis, offering a convenient alternative to reserving rooms in advance. 

“There are only so many rooms where you can take a quiet call on campus,” Gerald Deng ’25 shared in an April 26 interview with The Justice, explaining inconveniences his friends had previously experienced with finding private rooms without time to reserve them in advance. More specifically, one of Deng’s friends had to take an interview between classes in a public area. 

“It really came to my mind because of the fact you got an interview, you got referred, you networked super hard — all of it is just wasted because you couldn’t find the space to take the interview,” Deng said. He explained that interviewers who notice others in the background may perceive a student’s lack of privacy as a lack of professionalism, which could hurt their chances at securing the position. 

Deng secured funding for this project through the University’s Community Enhancement and Emergency Fund. Awards from the CEEF “[provide] funding for longer term student-led initiatives that enhance the Brandeis community” as well as “short term emergency funding for student life on campus.” The CEEF Subcommittee of the Student Union’s Allocations Board oversees the fund, and each project must have faculty or staff assert its viability. 

A mutual friend connected Deng with Joshua Feld ’22, who worked with Mo Re Kim ’24 to renovate the Village B/C Gym using a CEEF award, the project inspiring him to pursue CEEF support as well. 

Once Deng decided the SCC and the library would be the most beneficial locations for the soundproof booths, he contacted the Director of Student Engagement, Matthew DeCarlo; the Director of Campus Planning, Sarah Houlton; University Librarian, Matthew Sheehy and the Associate Director for Budget and Operations in the Department of Student Engagement, Deepa Khatri for approval. Khatri also serves as the CEEF Board’s faculty advisor.

“Because it was the end of the spring semester, I just wanted to gauge their interest and see if it was even possible to lay the ground foundation,” Deng explained. He later stressed the importance of these faculty members’ input to the project’s success, given that he had to collaborate with them to adhere to fire safety protocols among other preparatory work. 

Following the faculty members’ approval, Deng proposed several price points to the CEEF Board — the highest being $110,000 — since he had no means of estimating how much funding the board would allocate to the project. That being said, Deng felt confident that his initiative was strong enough to generate support. “I think everyone [has] experienced in some way where they had to find a quiet place,” Deng shared, highlighting how the universal experience among community members validated the need for the project to the CEEF Board alongside the positive responses to his survey.

The CEEF Board ultimately allocated $65,039.38 for Deng’s project. The fund is enough to cover the aforementioned seven soundproof booths from KI furniture, the same vendor that the University worked with to install the SCC Game Room’s new furniture. This initiative was given  the highest amount of allocations out of all projects the CEEF funded in the 2024-25 application cycle.

“If I got zero dollars, I would’ve fundraised through alumni just to buy one of these booths,” Deng said. To Deng, the need for accessible, quiet spaces at Brandeis would have made the added labor of appealing to alumni worth accomplishing. 

Although these soundproof booths are most common in offices, they are on the rise in university settings. By installing these pods, Brandeis will be joining institutions such as Northeastern University, which refers to its soundproof booths as “Buzzy Booths.”