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Residence Life looks toward housing a record 5,700 students

Construction of new residence halls delayed, but leased

The highest ever on-campus population is set to move into UA residence halls next fall, and Residence Life director James Van Arsdel said he is ready.

"We could see the need far enough in advance that we could take action in advance," said Van Arsdel

This semester, Residence Life secured two-year leases on Sky View Apartments, 1050 E. Eighth St., and Palm Shadows Apartments, 1815 E. Helen St., in addition to renewing its 10-year lease on Corleone Apartments, 1330 N. Park Ave. About 500 students will be served by the apartment-living option.

Last fall, Van Arsdel and a committee of 13 others began meeting to create a summary report to address the immediate need for additional housing.

The committee's conclusion was that temporarily leasing nearby apartment complexes was the best option to accommodate an influx of students within a year while new residence halls are being built.

The addition of the apartment complexes will help alleviate the inflow of housing applicants, which Van Arsdel estimated will reach 5,700 next year - topping the previous high of 5,300 on-campus residents who were crammed into every possible space in 1988.

At the time, residents were packed into quadruple rooms at Arizona-Sonora residence hall, triple rooms in halls not designed for the tight capacity, such as Manzanita-Mohave and Apache-Santa Cruz, and several smaller, unpopular buildings that have since been closed down or demolished.

However, even with ever-growing demand, residents will never live in such close quarters again, Van Arsdel said.

"We've made a commitment in more recent years not to assign people quite that densely, and I think it's had a (positive) impact," he said.

With the existence of options between residence halls and apartments, Van Arsdel said a significant amount of people have elected to stay within the Residence Life system.

Palm Shadows and Sky View are about half-full of returners, and Corleone is almost completely filled with non-freshmen.

"All of this occurred without our coercing anybody to do anything - it just occurred because that's what students want," he said.

Van Arsdel added that one or two students have called him to complain about what they viewed as the UA taking over their homes - yet he said the objections of a few are far outweighed by the ability to serve several hundred other students.

"That seems like a pretty easy decision to me," he said, although he did admit that the UA's sprawl to non-university-owned buildings would have some effect on the community.

"There's some cost to what we're doing - there's no question about that," he added.

There are also two large residence halls lined up for the future, although the construction of one dorm has been delayed.

The hall, set to be built across the street from La Paz Residence Hall, has been pushed back from an anticipated ground-breaking this summer to tentative completion by 2003.

UA facilities nearby the site, including the motor pool, grounds and labor department, and Facilities Management, were slated to be relocated to a former Tucson Electric Power building on East Sixth Street, but that plan fell through.

However, Van Arsdel said he is still searching for an architect to handle the new project and would like to begin construction by next summer.

In addition, there is also an apartment-style complex set to be built north of Coronado Residence Hall.

Aside from adding new facilities to Residence Life, recently added features have rounded out the human experience of living in the residence halls.

As students are given the option to live in off-campus apartments, resident assistants can now alter their leadership techniques to fit the roles of the community assistant, who will fill a similar role in the apartment complexes.

Van Arsdel said resident assistants focus more on programming, which would bring dorm residents together for activities and socialization, while community assistants will place a greater emphasis on fostering one-on-one relationships with residents.

Van Arsdel said the traditional residence hall-style programming is difficult to achieve in apartments, as evidenced by the unsuccessful efforts of Residence Life staff at Corleone. Though he said the community assistant style of interaction is still experimental, Van Arsdel added that it may become the common practice.

With an emphasis on awareness-raising, Matt Helm, coordinator of multicultural education for Residence Life, was part of the effort to bring diversity education to dorm residents.

Helm chairs the El Mundo committee, which sponsored several multicultural programs throughout the year, including the Tunnel of Oppression, Hunger Banquet and Operation Friendly Campus.

"My goal over the last two years has been to normalize (and) institutionalize a multicultural paradigm. Thus, we should be thinking inclusively about anything and everything we do," Helm said. "For example, when doing this activity, 'who am I including just by doing this activity, who am I excluding.' We want our residence halls to be an environment that all people can succeed in, not just the norm - white, middle to upper-class."

Hillary Davis can be reached at Hillary.Davis@wildcat.arizona.edu.

INFOBOX: By the numbers

5,200 - people lived on-campus this year

5,300 - record for on-campus residents

5,700 - amount anticipated for next year, with space available for all

$2 million - cost of new apartments for two years