This semester, students may find themselves a little stuck - wherever they're already living, that is.
While the coming of the spring semester often means more vacant rooms and increased opportunities for students to switch residences, room changes this semester are harder to come by.
Last fall's housing crunch, which saw students placed in converted kitchens and lounges, is responsible for the current semester's relatively tight housing situation, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of Residential Life. Last semester's overcrowding, he said, was due to the combination of an over-enrolled freshman class and fewer students taking leaves of absence.
This semester, there's no "crunch," Bova said, "we just don't have maximum amounts of flexibility."
The space in on-campus housing is simply a matter of inflows and outflows, Bova said. During the spring, the total number of students taking leaves of absence, studying abroad or otherwise not living on campus tends to be greater than the total number of mid-year transfer students and students returning to campus. This net outflow of students between the fall and spring semesters generally means that there are more vacancies in residence halls during the spring.
According to Bova, there are fewer students living on campus this semester than last semester, but the difference isn't enough to counterbalance the residual effects of an overcrowded fall.
At the beginning of the fall semester, the housing crunch translated into the temporary conversion of many common areas so that they could house the surplus of students. While many of these temporary spaces have been vacated and their occupants placed in permanent housing, Associate Director of Residential Life Natalie Basil said the Office of Residential Life is still finishing the process of converting all common areas back.
"We're still very committed to having common areas and kitchen spaces in our dorms," Basil said. "We haven't forgotten that."
In addition to vacating students from all temporary housing, ResLife was also faced with the task of placing returning students, as well as 40 mid-year transfer students, into residence halls.
Basil praised students returning to campus for doing "a really great job planning." She said many students were "pulled in" to a suite, which makes the move back onto campus smoother because students can anticipate where and with whom they will be living.
For mid-year transfers, the housing assignment works somewhat differently: Questionnaires about living habits, which are used for both incoming first-year and transfer students in the fall, are not part of the process mid-year, primarily because there are fewer rooms available and student requests cannot always be met, Bova said.
Instead, incoming and returning students who have not been pulled into a room or a suite may give their preference for living in a particular area on campus and may indicate what type of room they would prefer.
Basil said ResLife tries to place students together based on semester standing and, as often as possible, tries to clump transfer students together.
"Our goal," Basil said, "is to help (transfer students') transition to the University be successful."
As students adjust to their new living situations, Bova said, ResLife is "waiting for the final dust to settle" before it will be able to accommodate most room change requests.
"We had beds for everyone," Basil said, adding that while students may not initially be happy with their housing assignments, ResLife encourages them to give themselves a chance to "settle in" and "give their new spaces a try."
Included in this group of students who will have to wait until at least next week for news on whether they will be granted a room change are many students who requested a room change at the end of last semester.
Kara Lindquist '11, currently living in a double in Sears House, went to ResLife last semester hoping to switch rooms at the beginning of this semester.
Though her request has not yet been granted, Lindquist said she thought the staff were "pretty upfront" about the fact that housing is tight this semester and were "very courteous" and "helpful."
According to Bova, Lindquist's reaction is not atypical, and the number of student complaints about their housing placements has not increased from years past. Bova said ResLife has actually dealt with fewer unhappy students this semester.
Around the first week in February, Basil said, ResLife will have a better idea of the available rooms on campus and will begin contacting students who still wish to move out of their current room. Lindquist said she was told she'd have 48 hours to accept or decline the new housing assignment.
Bova also said that while most students who had requested a room change were informed that they would have to wait, there have been spaces available for students who needed more immediate room changes.
But for other students like Lindquist, whose situations are not so dire, it's going to be a waiting game. "We're crossing our fingers," Lindquist said.
