Overflow problems cause students, RPS concerns

While 268 students moved into floor lounges they would share with three or more students on move-in day in August, about 100 bed spaces remained empty.

“We had about 100 people cancel between Aug. 12 through 25,” said Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director of assignments for Residential Programs and Services.

But because of confusion surrounding the placements, Ivey Lucas said lounge-dwellers could not be moved to actual rooms until after the school
year began.

At the beginning of the year, every residence hall contained students living in lounges.
Sarah Wells, Read Center president, said at least 11 of the 17 floor lounges in Read were being used as housing at the start of the year.

“When we had floor meetings, half of them didn’t even know where the meeting was,” she said.

Placement in a lounge is on a last-come, last-serve basis, Ivey Lucas said. Students who apply for housing close to the start of the semester are most likely to end up roomless. And those who do get placed in lounges are told of the situation before Aug. 10, she said.

In return for the inconvenience, students receive a 20 percent reduction from their housing cost. For a room in Forest Quad, a student living in a lounge would pay $4,014 instead of $5,018.

“I think that’s fair,” Ivey Lucas said. “That’s pretty standard across the Big Ten
universities.”

Freshman Lauren Delprete, an out-of-state student, said she would not like living in a lounge but understands it’s the luck of the draw.

“It’s a lottery,” she said, “and if you get it, it’s not that big of a deal.”

But some students argue getting moved from a lounge to a dorm room isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Though RPS tries to place students from lounges to rooms in their neighborhood preference, Ivey Lucas said a group of male students living in a Briscoe Quad lounge complained about their move to Forest Quad, saying they belonged in the Northwest neighborhood.

While no other measures can be taken to improve the remaining overflow situation, Ivey Lucas and other RPS employees are working on a plan for the predicted overflow next year, as well as options to create 180 bed spaces to make up for the Briscoe renovations.

The team will present its ideas to the Residence Halls Association Space Utilization Committee on Friday.

RHA President Katie Lambert said the association has a lot of student voices on the committee, and even though the 180 spaces will be temporary, she thinks permanent measures should be taken about the number of students admitted to campus.

“Overflow is caused more by admissions or housing,” said Cerwin Rush, Eigenmann Hall president. “It’s a communication disconnect up there. It should have been fixed up top before it was brought to us.”

RHA members are hoping to take their concerns to Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith, Lambert said.

However, in an e-mail, Goldsmith said, “I think the RHA should use the good offices of the Residence Hall Administration to express their concerns to Pat Connor and the leadership of RPS.”

As students, RHA members know best about dorm life, Lambert said. With the changes next year, she said the quality of resident life will significantly decline.

“We want to harness our student power in a professional manner to address our concerns in a way administration can understand,” she said.

Some of the plans for a new dorm, which is part of a 15-year plan and is proposed to open in fall 2013, as well as the renovations in Briscoe Quad, have concerned Lambert.

For the new residence hall, Lambert said she believes it will help as long as the problem with the number of students admitted to the University is addressed.

“I appreciate that RPS is trying to accommodate all types of students,” she said. “But I think the bigger picture is how many students can we hold?”

Wells agrees that the University is not utilizing the space as well as it could.

“A lot of us were surprised they didn’t make more housing in Union Street,” she said. “I think they need to pull the focus back toward more housing. If they keep that in mind, it will help the overflow problem. But if the focus is too much on how it’s going to look, that could be a problem.”

The new dormitory is part of a master plan but has not been finalized, said Philip Eskew, chair of the facilities committee for the Board of Trustees.

“We’re thinking about putting in a new dormitory,” he said. “It was mentioned by someone that we’re considering a new dorm. But we have not taken any official action.”

However, Eskew said it will most likely be similar to Union Street with two, three and four bedroom suites. Like the new suites to open in Briscoe Quad, the dorm will be available for freshmen.

“Over time, we hope to convert all of them to more livable situations as opposed to a whole row of rooms with a bathroom at the end,” he said.

Eskew said the board is not heavily involved in the building process for new projects, and decisions are left to people like Tom Morrison, vice president for capital projects and facilities.

“Usually, Tom Morrison comes to us and says we’re going to have a new dormitory, and we, as a group — usually not all of us — will meet with other people to choose the architect,” Eskew said.

“We talk about what we’d like to see in the building. ...then Vice President Morrison listens to what we need to say.”

A housing summit to discuss the new dorm will take place on Nov. 13 and will include 10 members of RHA.

“I think they’re doing everything they can with the 15-year plan,” said Wyatt Jackson, Forest Quad president. “They’re handling it with respect. As long as they continue to work with students, I think they’re doing a good job.”