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Overcrowding forces students into lounges, hotel rooms
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MATT HEISTAND
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By (From left) Business freshman David Mongan helps computer science freshman Ali Nassiri and business freshman Taylor McFarland get settled into their new home in the seventh floor study lounge in Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall yesterday afternoon. The lounge, which currently houses five residents, is just one of many places RHA has had to put students because of housing shortages.
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Monday August 20, 2001 |
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Record number of new freshmen cited as main problem for housing crunch
More than 200 students arriving at the UA this fall have had to change their housing plans just slightly.
Due to a shortage of housing space, many students who expected to begin the year in a dorm room have instead been assigned to live in converted study rooms, computer labs and residence hall lounges. Still others were temporarily placed in hotel rooms or assigned to live with one of the residence halls' resident assistants.
UA officials say the reason for the crunch is the record number of freshmen entering the university this semester - approximately 6,100.
Also, students planning to live in residence halls this semester were given a May 1 deadline to submit housing applications. All applications received by May 1 were guaranteed housing through the Office of Residence Life.
However, James Van Arsdel, director of housing for the Department of
Residence Life, said more students returned housing applications by the
May 1 deadline than the residence halls could accommodate.
"Our normal capacity is around 5,500," Van Arsdel said.
Van Arsdel said the number of on-time housing applications far exceeded that capacity.
"We just didn't have enough space for them, bottom line," he said.
Van Arsdel said exact numbers of students currently displaced by the housing shortage are difficult to verify. Currently, the Department of Residence Life is moving as many students as possible out of hotels and converted residence hall lounges and into dorm rooms.
However, more than 200 students are still being housed in converted spaces in the residence halls, such as study rooms and lounges.
Van Arsdel said the Department of Residence Life is making the converted rooms as comfortable as possible, installing phone lines and data jacks, even providing a cell phone for rooms in which phone service is not possible. Van Arsdel said each student has a bed and a place to hang and store clothes. Desks and other furniture will be provided as it becomes available.
"As lounges empty out, we'll take things and move them around," Van Arsdel said.
Chris Davis, a freshman majoring in political science and international business, is currently living in a converted study room in Yavapai Hall. Davis said he sent his housing application in by the designated deadline.
Although he was assigned to share the study room with two other students, Davis said both of his temporary roommates have already been reassigned.
Davis said he expects a longer wait.
"They said it could be weeks or a month," said Davis.
Happy to be on his own for the first time, Davis said he is not upset by his housing situation.
"Actually, it hasn't been an inconvenience at all," said Davis. "There's plenty of space."
However, after adjusting to having the study room to himself, Davis said Residence Life is just postponing the inevitable.
"The inconvenience will be moving out," he said.
Although he said the progress in placing students in permanent rooms is slow, Van Arsdel pointed out that spaces will also become available when students either fail to show up for school or choose to leave the residence halls for off-campus housing.
"There are always cancellations," Van Arsdel said. "When those happen, we'll move other students in."
Which students are moved into regular dorm rooms first is decided by the date upon which the university received each student's housing application.
Those who submitted their applications early have a better chance of getting a room sooner than those who waited until May 1 to apply.
Those who did not submit their applications early face the possibility of remaining in temporary housing indefinitely.
For students living with RAs, the chance of moving anytime soon is less than likely.
"RA rooms will probably be shared all semester," said Van Arsdel. "One of the reasons (that RAs and students must double up) is that we still have 120 people in hotel rooms," Van Arsdel said.
While most of these students are living in hotels near campus, such as the Sheraton Four Points, 1900 E. Speedway Blvd., some are being housed much further from campus at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites, 5151 E. Grant Road.
Van Arsdel said Residence Life plans to relocate these students to dorms as soon as possible.
Students making the commute from hotels to campus do receive the benefit of lower housing costs. Students in hotels pay the daily rate that applies to residents of Sierra Hall, the least expensive of the university's residence halls.
Students will be charged a prorated fee for the time they spend in an actual residence hall once they have been moved in.
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