Lounge residents get homes

By Kristi Oloffson\nkoloffso@indiana.edu \nThe wait is over. \nResidential Programs and Services has found permanent assignments for the remaining 22 men living in dorm lounges. \nThe announcement came at a staff meeting Tuesday that the men in lounges -- six in Teter Quad and 16 in Forest Quad -- would be moved to dorm rooms, RPS Executive Director Pat Connor said.\n"(Everyone in a lounge) has been contacted and knows what their new assignment should be and should be in permanent assignment by Monday ..." Sara Ivey-Lucas, assistant director for housing assignments, said Thursday. \nThe move means that the students living in lounges will pay the full rate of the dorm to which they relocate.\nThe discount for the students was about $2.69 per day, Ivey-Lucas said. That comes to about $55 of total savings for those who remained in the lounges for the full three weeks. \nSophomore Wissam Nour said he didn't mind living in the lounge or the amount of the discount but said he liked having the security in knowing he wouldn't be moving again. \nStill, he said having to leave in such short notice was unfair because his job prohibited him from moving out in time. Nour said he received the notification to leave Sept. 8, giving him three days to move from Teter to McNutt Quad. \nHe said he fears he might have incurred a fine for moving out late. \n"I definitely got the short end of the stick," Nour said. \nSince he didn't have a car on campus, Nour said the move was a "really big inconvenience." \nSophomore Greg Gier's only complaint was the difficulty of moving all of his belongings from his Briscoe Quad lounge to a room in Teter with no assistance, despite a letter saying the center desk would be available to help with the move when he was given his assignment. \n"The actual move -- they couldn't help me at all. I thought they were supposed to," he said. "If I didn't know anybody with a car down here, I'd be pretty much screwed." \nThe large freshman class contributed to an overflow of the dorms this year, something Connor and Ivey-Lucas said they don't necessarily have control over. \n"Our office always has to play and work with the number of students that are recruited and accepted admission to IU," Ivey-Lucas said. "So in big banner years when everyone wants to come to IU, we may face this issue again, and that's just a part of the cycle of what happens." \nConnor said though the admissions office controlled how many students were accepted to the University, it couldn't know how many of those students would actually choose IU from all of the schools to which they applied. According to recently released enrollment figures, this year's freshman class is IU's largest ever with 7,259 students -- up 310 students from last year. \nThough the number of "no-shows" was actually higher than average this year, more women failed to show up than men, leaving 67 men to reside in temporary housing until a permanent residence was found for them, Ivey-Lucas said. \nAbout 200 people either did not show up to campus or left the dorms in the past three weeks, Ivey-Lucas said.\n"That gave us the space to get us those 67 men into permanent room assignments," she said. \nConnor defended the rate RPS charged the students who lived in the lounges.\n"They're an occupant like anyone else," Connor said. "Every dollar a student spends gets spread out to a bunch of things, including the staff of the main desk, RAs, personnel costs, all paid for by revenues." \nConnor said the possibility of RPS making extra money from lounges that would normally be empty was not a factor.\n"We incur additional costs to set up the lounges," he said.\n Staff who worked extra hours had to bring up additional furniture and set up the lounges, he said. Internet and phones were also made available in the lounges, which costs additional money, he said. \nIf the situation comes up again, Connor said it will not be a huge concern.\n"If we know it's a temporary situation that we can control in a few weeks, it isn't necessarily a bad thing," he said.