With 562 students, the class of 2023 is made up of a slightly larger population than any other class currently enrolled at Occidental, creating unprecedented housing placement issues, specifically with first-year students being placed in upper-division housing.
Monique Hankerson, associate director of housing services, said first-year housing is at full capacity, and the variability of each incoming class poses a unique set of challenges for the Residential Education and Housing Services (REHS) department each year.
“Any time you have a large class, there are more capacity issues,” Hankerson said.
Adrian Manhey (first year) and his roommate Nick Hays (first year) are students living in E. Norris Hall, one of the upper-division housing options on campus. Manhey said his housing placement has pros and cons and has created a unique opportunity for him to navigate the college.
“There are too many freshmen and all the freshman dorms are kind of filled up right now. A lot of people are in forced triples so there was no room for me and Nick to be in first-year dorms,” Manhey said.
Hankerson explained her intentions behind placing first-year students in Norris Hall as wanting to keep the first-year students together and in the vicinity of other first-year students. Norris was a good fit because the building shares a parking lot with first-year dorm, Braun hall.
Carson Van Kalsbeek (first year) is another first year student living in upper-division housing and has a single room in Haines Hall.
“I was assuming that I would have a single in a freshman dorm because I heard there were singles in freshman dorms. But apparently our class is really big so they ran out of singles for freshmen,” Van Kalsbeek said.
Van Kalsbeek was surprised by his housing placement and said REHS made him aware that he would not be living in first-year housing a few weeks before arriving at Occidental. Van Kalsbeek said he was initially nervous about the prospect of living in upper-division housing but quickly adjusted and made friends in other dorms.
Variability between class years creates inconsistencies in the housing placement process. According to Hankerson, there are 33 transfer students and 13 exchange students this year. Additionally, although Occidental requires students to live on campus for their first three years, seniors often choose to live on-campus, inhibiting flexibility in upper-division housing.
Occidental’s housing applications provide the opportunity to meet students’ needs, including requests for gender-specific housing, lower campus housing, air-conditioned rooms, themed housing and triple rooms, according to Hankerson. Requests vary from year to year, putting pressure on REHS to meet these demands.
Hankerson said students at Occidental are not aware of the extensive effort REHS puts into fulfilling specific room requests.
REHS is currently understaffed due to recent departures.
According to Manhey, staff members helped first-year students move into their dorms. He expressed frustration with the check-in process, explaining that it was difficult to locate his dorm especially since other staff and students at the college were surprised by the unusual circumstances of his room placement.
“When I told people I was living in Norris and how to get there, they were like, ‘You’re living in Norris?’” Manhey said.
Manhey said that to some extent he felt left out of first-year dorm activities.
“The biggest one is the events that bring the dorms together. At Bell-Young they had an ice cream social, at Braun they had a game night. That kind of stuff to meet the people you’re living with doesn’t really happen here,” Manhey said. “It’s kind of hard to meet people when you’re not in freshman housing.”
According to Manhey, in addition to his good roommate pairing, there are other positive aspects of his living situation.
“Another little quirky benefit is that everyone is interested in hearing about the sophomore dorms when I tell my freshman friends,” Manhey said. “It’s also cool because we don’t have those community events in Norris so I’m able to go to the events in Braun, Pauley, Bell Young, Stewie and Chilcott.”
Similarly, after several weeks at Occidental Van Kalsbeek is enjoying living in upper-division housing.
“If I want to get away from it all and feel like I just need to relax and be by myself it’s really easy,” Van Kalsbeek said. “It’s much, much quieter.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misattributed statements to Monique Hankerson.
