RPS announces plan to combat overflow housing

IU Residential Programs and Services and the Residence Halls Association Space Utilization Committee have finalized a plan that will create about 321 bed spaces to help with overflow housing next fall.

Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director of assignments for RPS, said RPS will move staff members to single rooms where appropriate, including residential assistants and community educators — totaling about 150 spaces.

“We did decide for double-singles that we will have a grandfather (clause),” Ivey Lucas said. “All students who currently have a double-single who want to keep it, that they can do. But beyond that we’re only going to be offering about 50 double-singles campus wide.”

The number of double-singles offered next year, no more than 75, has significantly dropped from four years ago when there were more than 400, Ivey Lucas said.

Large rooms in Eigenmann Hall, Forest Quad and Wright Quad will also be made to fit another space, Ivey Lucas said. Triples in Eigenmann will become quads, large doubles in Wright will become triples, and some single suites in Forest will become doubles. This will create about 131 spaces.

Based on meetings with the RPS executive director and several associate deans, the plan will not include changes in Collins Living-Learning Center.

“The Collins community size will be maintained at about its current occupancy right now,” Ivey Lucas said. “We recognize that they think that is too large, but we can’t reduce it. We can cap it so that it doesn’t get any larger than it is this year.”

Ivey Lucas said because the total created spaces is more than the 180 needed to cover the loss of beds in Briscoe Quad, RPS hopes to accommodate students left in lounges.

“The only kind of unknown factor is what the freshman class yield will be,” she said. “We want them to hit their target, but we’re also kind of OK if the freshman class remains around 7,000.”

— Bailey Loosemore
— Bailey Loosemore