RPS losing housing spots for next fall

Finding spots for the incoming freshmen to live has been a problem the last few years for Residential Programs and Services, even placing students in lounges temporarily.

And it’s an issue that won’t be going away anytime soon.

RPS now has three new plans for renovations and constructions for the 2010-11 school year that will take possible student rooms out of commission.

Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director of assignments for RPS, said RPS is moving forward with renovations on Briscoe Quad and Tulip Tree Apartments and will also shut down the University West Apartments.

The renovations being made to Briscoe will render about 500 bed spaces obsolete, Ivey Lucas said. Fifty percent of the 200 rooms in Tulip Tree are also being shut down for renovations. The University West Apartments have also been sold to the Jacobs School of Music and the 234-room building will be demolished.

“We can’t keep waiting,” Ivey Lucas said.

RPS has been planning these renovations for a long time, she said and it is now or never. She said the longer RPS waits for renovations, the older the buildings get and the more likely the building funds won't be approved.

“We are about five years behind in renovations,” Ivey Lucas said.

RPS will be opening more rooms for the 2010-11 year. With the completion of the new New Housing 2010 Apartments, 827 brand-new bed spaces will be open, although no freshmen will live in the new buildings.

“The buildings in concept were not designed to help with overflow housing,” Ivey Lucas said. “They were designed to retain upperclassmen on campus.”

Though the new apartments will not relieve overflow housing, Ivey Lucas said there are other steps being taken to open more rooms such as limiting the number of single double rooms.

Currently 300 students were allowed to live alone in a room for two students, she said. Next year only 125 double rooms will be available as singles, opening up 175 rooms.

Ivey Lucas also said all floors that require residents to be older than 21 are being moved to Willkie Quad.

This will make 40 bed spaces available in Eigenmann Hall and 117 in the Stemple building of Ashton Center.
Pat Connor, executive director of RPS, said the biggest thing causing the housing issues is the large increase in the student population. He said the current enrolment is 42,347 but five years ago there was only 37,821 students.

“We had not increased the bed capacity as the University was growing,” Connor said.

Sarah Gallagher Dvorak, senior associate director of marketing and communications for the Office of Admissions, said there have been 21,455 students already admitted and 2,516 have already paid their deposits.

She said application numbers are up 11 percent and the deposit number is up 4 percent from this time last year. Last year just less than 23,600 students were admitted, Dvorak said, and the freshman class ended up being 7,327.

“This is one of those years we don’t know what to expect yet.” she said, “We definitely don’t want to have a class of 7,500 again.”

With the increase in students and the overflow in housing each year, RPS has been weighing all options, but turning students away is not one of them.

Connor said some universities turn students away once they reach their capacity, but RPS refuses to follow those universities.

“We don’t see having students in overflow housing as a problem,” Connor said.

It is better to offer students a temporary living situation in a lounge than to turn them away, he said. Students living in a lounge are also compensated with a discounted rate for the length of time they are there, Connor said.

If IU could hit the target for freshmen, Connor said, then there would not be overflow housing.

“Right now I’m not able to say what we are going to be able to do, but I will have a better idea in May,” he said. “My hope is we have permanent housing for each student, but we are prepared to use lounges.”