Demands strain on-campus housing

By Catherine Bratic     4/10/08 7:00pm

An increased demand for on-campus housing led to panic for many students at room draw this year. At some colleges, room draw coordinators were forced to change their plans to deal with the increased demand for an ever-smaller number of spaces.At Jones College, students are normally bumped off-campus according to their seniority, with juniors and seniors at the highest risk of being bumped. Students get an exemption if they move off campus early.

"We have been doing many things differently [this year]," Stephen Goggin, who is in charge of room draw at Jones, said.

Goggin, a junior, said Jones had to bump off two rising sophomores this year. He said Jones was asked to reserve 93 beds for incoming freshmen next fall, which is an increase from 85 this year.

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Enrollment for the class of 2012 will increase from 742 freshmen last fall to a projected 775 next fall. The number for next year is still uncertain because prospective freshmen will have until May 1 to inform Rice of their enrollment decision.

Overall, the freshman class has increased from 628 in fall 2000 to 775 in fall 2008, a 23 percent increase.

To meet the guidelines set out in President David Leebron's Vision for the Second Century, the Office of Enrollment plans to increase the freshman class by an additional 20 percent by 2011, reaching 930 freshmen. This is up from the 628 freshmen in fall 2000.

Some room draw coordinators feel that a larger freshman class is one reason for this year's increased demand for on-campus housing.

Last year, Martel College took in an extra 10 freshmen in addition to what it had been anticipating. Thresher Calendar Editor Sean McBeath, who is in charge of Martel's room draw, said the college will take in 81 freshmen this year, a smaller number of freshmen than it would have otherwise, if it had not taken in 10 extra freshmen last year.

McBeath, a sophomore and Thresher calendar editor, said Martel was concerned that it would have to kick off sophomores in addition to juniors, the latter of whom are normally kicked off. He said if Martel had been asked to take in a larger number of freshmen than anticipated, it would not have been able to accommodate all its sophomores.

Will Rice College was asked to take in 84 freshmen next year, leaving them with more students guaranteed housing than they have beds.

"The combined increase of last year and this year is what makes this year especially difficult at Will Rice," junior Eastman Landry, who is in charge of room draw, said.

He said since Will Rice kicks off juniors and more freshmen than usual will declare sophomore status next year instead of planning to graduate early and declaring themselves juniors. Since juniors are typically kicked off, this reduces room draw flexibility because there will now be more sophomores than usual who are guaranteed housing.

"This means that juniors have pretty much no chance of getting on campus," Landry said.

He said juniors had negative six spots available at one point.

"Additionally, we need six other people to go off-campus - either willingly or possibly forced at a later date," Landry said. "At this point we are hoping that the numbers work out, since that is really all we can do."

Landry said that Will Rice had worked out a potential plan in which the six people would move into already filled rooms if all incoming students decided to live on campus. This would mean that an additional bed would have to be added to as many as six rooms.

"This is not what we want to do, but if it comes to that, this is what we think is the best thing that we can do," Landry said.

Some students facing room jack will go to great lengths to secure a spot on campus. At Jones College, four groups of students attempted to form triples by putting three students in a two-bed room.

Jones freshman Rick Manning originally planned to triple up, until a last-minute change in plans allowed him to live on with only one roommate.

"I was one of the two lucky freshmen whose names were drawn for bumping off-campus," Manning said. "So, in order to keep me on campus, some friends of mine offered to form a triple with me. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't offered."

Other colleges are also feeling the pinch and are blaming the increased class sizes.

Sophomore Jackie Ammons, who is in charge of housing at Brown College, said the housing problem is rooted in the amount of freshmen Housing and Dining asks the colleges to house.

This year, Brown kicked 32 rising juniors off campus, which is an increase from 14 last year, to make room for freshmen.

"We are doing our best to accommodate as many people as possible," Ammons said. "But, unfortunately, our hands are tied as far as the number of freshmen that the administration requires us to house this year."

Brown has 244 beds, 91 of which will be occupied by freshmen next year, an increase from last year's 84 freshmen. Ammons said she did not feel that the overall demand for housing at Brown was different this year.

"My fear is that they're increasing enrollment but that they don't have housing for everybody," Ammons said. "It's great that they're increasing enrollment in the university, but I feel like we don't have the capacity to do that without hurting the students who are already here."

Vice President for Enrollment Chris Munoz said the increased freshman class size would not greatly impact housing.

"If you take the numbers [of incoming freshmen next year] and divide by nine, it's really not that much," Munoz said. "But I can't really speak to and understand all the inconveniences because . I don't live on campus."

Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman said Duncan and McMurtry Colleges will be finished by fall 2009.

"I expect that the opening of Duncan and McMurtry next fall will lead to a dramatic softening of the on-campus housing market," Forman said.

He said the current demand for housing is a temporary strain

on resources.

Sid Richardson College is also facing a crunch, but mainly due to increased housing demand from upperclassmen. Sid will take in four additional freshmen next year, senior Nick Ripp, who is in charge of room draw, said. Sid bumped 20 people this year, compared to last year's 6.

Lovett did not have any room draw worries this year, junior Beko Binder said. Binder said this year, per usual, Lovett was able to provide housing for every student who wanted it.

At Wiess College, while 48 students were kicked off - up from 43 last year - the college's only change was to assign one additional room to incoming freshmen, junior Caroline Spedale said.

Hanszen College is using this year's room draw experience as an opportunity to reevaluate the entire system.

Hanszen President Abbie Ryan announced last week that Hanszen would be forming a committee to look into other options for room draw. Ryan, a junior, said the committee will research room draw systems at each of the other colleges and present the advantages and disadvantages of each system to Hanszen.

"We're going to evaluate whether the way we're currently doing things is the best for the college as a whole," Ryan said. "I'm looking forward to it because we definitely haven't done an introspective study of Hanszen in a long time."

Under the current system at Hanszen, sophomores are most likely to be kicked off campus. Hanszen students are not bumped in advance, so students do not know until the night of room draw whether or not they will be living on or off campus.

Hanszen junior Sara Rivas, who is in charge of room draw, said only about 35 of the Hanszen rising sophomores were able to live on campus. At the end of room draw, about 25 sophomores who had hoped to remain on campus walked out without a room, Rivas said.

However, many more filled out housing agreements in the hopes of getting on, but did not attend room draw because they felt their chances were low, Rivas said.

"There is going to be a serious lack of the sophomore class on campus next year," said Rivas.

Rivas said this year, Hanszen strictly enforced room draw rules that had previously been more flexible.

"If there was any year that we really needed to be the most fair to as many people as possible and to stick to what the bylaws really said, it was this year," Rivas said.

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