Author: Jeremy Childs
Forty-seven new triples in Stewart-Cleland (Stewie) Hall and 26 last-minute junior housing exemption offers are a few of the changes resulting from the rise in students living on-campus this semester.
In addition to the conventional summer projects of dorm cleaning and renovation, Residential Education and Housing Services (ResEd) was faced with a deficit of on-campus housing for both upperclassmen and incoming first-year students. The latter of these problems was resolved by converting 71 percent of the doubles in Stewie to triples.
“It’s a really dramatic change,” politics major Shayna Jackson (junior) said, a former resident of Stewie. “Moving into Stewie, I thought the rooms were very spacious for two people, but for three people it seems pretty cramped. I’m glad I’m not in Stewie now.”
About two-thirds of the freshman class now live in triples, an increase from previous years. However, this growth is not due to over-enrollment. Although the Office of Admissions did extend acceptances to 3 percent more students this year, the incoming class size capped at about the same number as the class of 2016. Instead, the expansion has to do with the amount of upperclassmen living in residence halls.
Since the 2011-2012 school year, the amount of seniors deciding to live on-campus has grown 63 percent, while the amount of juniors offered housing exemption has declined 22 percent. With more upperclassmen living in on-campus buildings like Newcomb Hall and Pauley Hall, ResEd had to resort to old methods to accommodate the approximately 540 incoming first-year students, like switching Stewie doubles to triples.
“Stewie was originally created with room dimensions of a triple. They were triples for a very long time,” Stewie Resident Advisor and math and economics double-major Andrew Featherston (senior) said.
It was not until the Fall 2010 semester that ResEd decided it had enough space on campus to change the rooms in Stewie to doubles.
“I don’t think it’s very fair, especially if they’re paying the same as a standard triple,” Jackson said, adding that the lack of air-conditioning only makes matters worse.
The upperclassmen were also affected by the high occupancy problem. With multiple students walking out of Room Draw last year without a room assignment, ResEd needed to find a way to ensure they could house as many of these students as possible.
“Around the time we experienced a high occupancy, we found that students who applied to live off-campus were actually able to do so,” Associate Director of Housing Michelle Saldana said.
Acting on this discovery, ResEd sent out an email about three weeks before classes began accepting all the junior off-campus applications they initially denied.
“The wording of the email made it seem like they reconsidered and were allowing me to do what I originally wanted, but I soon found out that they had overbooked the dorms,” sociology major Mirisa Booth (junior) said. “They really didn’t help me with anything.”
Another student voiced dismay about the lack of help ResEd offered in terms of how to find off-campus housing.
“The only things they had were some resources budgeting-wise to figure out which option was cheaper,” biology major Mealani Kaiser (junior) said. “They didn’t help me transition or anything like that. Nothing on landlord rules or laws in L.A. county. It’s kinda messed up. I would have been lost if my roommate wasn’t from L.A.”
On top of the lack of help ResEd offers when initially moving off campus, students argue that the high cost of living on campus is a financial burden so it should be made easier to live off-campus.
“There shouldn’t be an application process. It’s really expensive to live here, and I think we should be able to choose. It’s about the money,” Jackson said, echoing the sentiments expressed by many of her peers.
Booth also added that it should be optional to live on-campus for the third year. Some students believe that the three-year on-campus living requirement perpetuates the situation and should be changed.
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