RPS considers new options for creating 180 bed spaces

Construction in Briscoe Quad will leave the residence hall short 180 bed spaces for the upcoming fall semester — spaces that will have to be made in other residence halls.

“We’ve had our overflow housing situation for four of the last five years,” said Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director of assignments for Residential Programs and Services. “And what we’re looking at for the 2011-12 academic year, and maybe the next two to five years after that, is being in a similar tight housing situation.”

In early August, Ivey Lucas and a team of colleagues began to review dorm rooms that could serve as additional bed spaces. After eliminating some of the less ideal options, Ivey Lucas said RPS met with the Residence Halls Association’s General Assembly on Oct. 14 to propose 224 possible spaces.

The proposal, Ivey Lucas said, looked at turning triple rooms in Eigenmann Hall and Collins Living-Learning Center into quads. They also considered making the rooms in Ashton Center that are connected by three single doors capable of fitting four residents.

After reviewing the 224 possible spaces, it was narrowed down to about 125.

“The Ashton singles becoming quads was a bad idea,” Ivey Lucas said. “Large triples as quads was a bad idea. Using large doubles in Collins as triples was a bad idea. People are going to feel sardined in and that’s not desirable.”

The triple rooms in Eigenmann Hall becoming quads, while not ideal, would be doable, Ivey Lucas said. The change would allow six more spaces on each floor — a total of 66 more spaces.

Another big decision still on the table is having residential assistants live in single rooms instead of double-singles.

At another General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, the RA decision was brought up again.

Ivey Lucas told the group of resident hall presidents and delegates that IU is one of four campuses in the Big Ten that still places RAs in double-singles.

Destiny Powers, the vice president of programming for RHA, said with RAs not in the middle of the hallway, she is afraid students will not engage with them as well.

Monica Woodrick, Teter Quad president, said RAs in Teter are at the end of the floor and there are no problems.

“I think it’s fine, and we see her all the time,” she said. “I see it as more of a learning experience than a huge detriment.”

The current plan calls to have about 100 less double-singles campus wide, Ivey Lucas said.

“We’ll allow them in learning communities but not in general residential space,” she said.

Students on the General Assembly also questioned whether precautionary action was taken.

Though RPS is in charge of creating spaces to handle overflow, Ivey Lucas said the IU administration and Board of Trustees made the decision of how many new students to
admit.

This year, the goal for the IU Office of Admissions was to admit 7,200 to 7,300 new students, Ivey Lucas said.

Ivey Lucas said the office was disappointed when they were below that number and will try to bring in a larger number of students next year.

Katie Lambert, RHA president, said RHA’s next step will be to go to the administration and address their concerns.

Another question brought up at the meeting dealt with the current Briscoe construction and why RPS decided to continue with the plan despite the overflow issues.

“The decision was made to move forward while the political will and resources were still available,” Ivey Lucas said. “The fact of the matter is we’re six to eight years behind that plan. We could have beat this baby boom of students, gotten ahead of you all. But we got behind.”

Ivey Lucas said she would like to send an e-mail to students interested in on-campus housing to let them know about the new changes between Nov. 10 and 15, before the residence hall renewal process begins on Nov. 29.

RPS is also bringing the discussion to students on the RHA Space Utilization committee, which includes four members of the General Assembly.

Though students’ opinions will be considered, Ivey Lucas said RPS is prepared to make the final decisions.

“But we want people to buy in and see where we’re coming from,” Ivey Lucas said.
In regards to Collins, Ivey Lucas said part of the dorm’s charm has always been the small, community-like atmosphere. Seven or eight years ago, she said Collins did not have a waitlist and had a lot of open spaces.

“Now it’s a place that a lot of students want to live,” she said. “It has a 50 percent retention rate. On top of that, they have generally 400 to 600 new students who want to live there. In a community whose size is going to max out and can’t get larger than 520 people or so. ...physically there isn’t any way to get more than 540 beds in the building that is Collins.”

Ivey Lucas argued that it would be potentially better to have four students who requested Collins living in Collins’ lounges than in a lounge in Teter.

“And people will either agree or disagree with that,” she said. “It’s that whole what’s ideal versus what do we need to do. This is a perfect example of ‘not in my backyard.’ I understand that you need to make 180 spaces, just don’t do that in my center.”

However, Ivey Lucas said the administration appreciates students’ opinions.

“I know its not comfortable or ideal, but we have to come up with what is going to be the most helpful to us and cause the least amount of harm to our communities,” she said.