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November 30, 1984/The Maroon Tiger/Page 3A
Nationwide Dorm Overcrowding May Get Worse
By Susie Goldberg
and David Gaede
CLEVELAND, Oh (CPS) — For
the price of a regular, on-campus
dorm room, John Carroll Univer
sity (JCU) senior Norm Kotoch
and 65 other students live in a
luxury hotel off-campus, where
they enjoy private washrooms,
cable television, refrigerators,
maid service, and swimming
pool privileges.
“Everyone's acting really well
because they don’t want to spoil
this situation,” Kotoch says. “It’s
really working out great.”
Not for everyone. For JCU
itself, putting up Kotoch and the
others is costing a "substantial”
amount of money, says James
Lavin, JCU Dean of Student Life.
But JCU had no other place to
house the new students it at
tracted this fall, thanks to an
unexpected six percent enroll
ment increase.
In part because they’ve been
successful in recruiting new
students and in part because
more students are opting to live
on-campus this fall, many
schools are suffering dorm room
shortages, reports Jim Grimm,
president of College and Univer
sity Housing Officers Inter
national (CUHOI).
And while a lucky few students
are living it up at luxury hotels,
on most room-short campuses
students must endure long waits,
overcrowding, temporary hous
ing in lounges and storage
rooms, and sometimes no hous
ing at all.
At least 600 Iowa State
students, for example, started
the year without a place to live,
and local and state agencies are
still to shelter them.
But a shortage of off-campus as
well as on-campus housing is
making a bad situation worse,
officials report.
University of Wisconsin-
Madison officials have turned
down, some 4000 housing re
quests because of overcrowding
there, says Lawrence Halle,
associate housing director.
Over 500 Uiversity of
Caiifornia-Davis freshmen
similarly were denied housing
this fall.
Other schools — South
Florida, Illinois, Southern Cal,
and Bates Cllege in Maine
among them — are coping with
unexpected overflows by stuf-
find three and often four
students in dorm rooms design
ed for single or double occupan
cy-
At the University of Nebraska,
for instance, where there are
5160 spaces available for more
than 5270 students, officials are
placing three students to a room.
"We won’t turn any student
away because of housing shor
tages,” says Housing Director
Doug Zatechka.
Zatechka claims tripling- of
students “has no effect on a
student’s GPA or the socializa
tion process,” especially com
pared to the alternative of tur
ning students out in the cold.
“Turning a student away,
especially at state schools, is a
crime,” he says. "For a student, a
triple room is better than no
room.”
None of it, however, was
supposed to happen.
Many campus housing officials
counseled that the terrible dorm
overcrowding of the late seven
ties and early eighties was tem
porary, and that building new
dorms to meet student demand
for rooms was unwise because
enrollment nationwide was due
to drop precipitously soon.
Many schools, in fact,
closed dorms over the last few
years in anticipation of the
enrollment decline.
But enrollments, of course,
haven’t dropped.
And more and more students
are finding that “it’s too expen
sive to live off-campus and while
on campus is much more con
venient,” says CUHOI’s Grimm.
Students also are being drawn
onto campus as colleges
remodel and upgrade their
dorms, says Nebraska’s
Zatechka. “Dorms are a very safe
place as far as fires and crime
go,” he adds. Some schools are
even adding new furniture,
unlimited food privileges, and
computer facilities to entice new
students.
On the other hand, Berkeley is
removing computers and video
games from its dorm lobbies to
make room for an unexpected
glut of new students there.
“Housing is definitely a
problem,” laments Arry
Legrand, Berkeley’s housing
chief. “We tell students to look
around early but many think it
just won’t happen to them.”
So far, he says, the university
has added 750 new spaces to
accommodate this year’s
overflow, besides leasing two
residence halls from other near
by schools.
Berkeley students living in
lobbies and game rooms must
store their personal belongings
in gym lockers two blocks away,
and endurea five-minute walk to
take showers on another part of
campus.
At Vale, a number of students,
upset with long waits and over
crowding, have asked for hous
ing deposit refunds so they can
get apartments off campus.
Administrators, though, are
refusing to refund money except
“very, very rare” cases in which
students need the money to
continue their educations. The
freshman class at Yale is huge,
and up until the time you’re a
senior the housing situation is
pretty bad,” says one disgruntled
student who wants her $520
housing deposit back.
"For the exhorbitant tuition
we pay to go to this school, they
make little exceptions to the
system,” says the student, who
prefers to remain anonymous.
"It's a system that makes you feel
like a number.”
But some schools actually have
housing surpluses this fall.
Because there’s so much off-
campus housing available this
year, over 700 Arizona State
students did not claim their
reserved dorm rooms this
semester, leaving the typically-
over crowded residence halls
with dozens of unfilled rooms.
And Loyola College in New
Orleans solved its housing
dilemma by buying a new
residence hall from a recently-
closed college over the summer?
At the beginning of the 1984-
1985 school year Morehouse
College, like the for-
mentioned institutions, was con
fronted with a serious problem, a
housing shortage. Faced with an
option to house students at
Morris Brown College, the ad
ministration at Morehouse
negotiated terms with Morris
Brown College for Morehouse
students to live at Gaines Hall.
Raymon E. Crawford, acting
vice president for student affairs,
stated that the reason students
were unable to be housed on
Morehouse’s campus was that
the students failed to follow the
procedure outlined for housing
in the Student Handbook, pages
7-10. In order for students to be
eligible for on-campus housing,
students must, by the designated
time, pay their tuition and hous
ing deposits to the Business
Office, and submit completed
housing applications to the
Housing Office. Crawford adds
that there is a specific date by
which all students who desire
housing at Morehouse must pay
a certain amount as the housing
fee. When this fee is paid, and on
time, steps are taken to ensure
that students have their rooms
upon their arrival, and they are
informed of this. It is only when
upperclassmen, incoming
freshman, and transfer students
do not meet the financial
deadline stated by the college
that we have a housing problem,
he emphasized.
Dennis Myles, . an
Engineering/Math major, had
pre-conceived thoughts about
staying at Morris Brown College.
Myles did not want to stay at
Morris Brown but was left with
no alternative because he need
ed somewhere to stay. Among
the advantages of staying at
Morris Brown, Myles feels that
the walk is great because of the
exercise, and he has time to
contemplate his daily schedule.
Kevin Ransom, a sophomore
Economics major, at first did not
like the idea of staying at Morris
Brown because of the reputation
of the anomosity between
Morehouse and Morris Brown
students. With the advantages of
a quiet, co-ed atmosphere, Ran
som stated that he is making the
most of the situation. Other
positive qualities of staying at
Morris Brown, Ransom adds, are
the quality of the bathroom and
no waiting to use the telephone.
There have been no threats of
disturbances upon students
housed at Morris Brown this
semester, Crawford replied, and
Morehouse has a good working
relationship with the Morris
Brown administration.
Rayford Jackson, a Junior
Accounting major, feels that
residing at Gaines Hall is a great
experience because it is going
from one extreme to the other.
Jackson stated, “that the living
conditions are not the greatest,
but it is better than living in
Graves Hall.” Aside from the
long walk, he adds that the
advantages to living at Morris
Brown are that it is peaceful, and
quiet, contrary to belief, which
enables him to get more study
ing done.
Kevin D. Jones, a senior Com
munications major, felt caught
off guard when he was informed
that he had to stay inGainesHall.
After living in Hubert and DuBois
Halls for two consecutive years,
Jones thought that White Hall, a
senior dormitory, was a logical
choice for a dorm. When
presented with the problem,
Jones felt that some residence
was better than none at all,
which some opted not to take.
Jones, like the other interviewed
students who reside in Gaines
Hall, has had no confrontation
with “outside forces.” But a
concern that Jones stated is that
it is only appropriate for
Morehouse’s administration to
send a representative to evaluate
the welfare of the Morehouse
students. Finally, Jones conclud
ed, the dormitory directors at
Morris Brown have made the
transition smooth, and have
been accomodating on all
points; and Morehouse students
staying at Morris Brown may
become a step in the right
direction for mending past
adversities, and establishing
better relations between Morris
Brown and Morehouse students.
Crawford concludes that
housing students is basically the
same as most universities. There
are dates when specific fees or
portions of the fees for housing
must be paid in order to receive
on-campus housing. If these fees
are paid on time, it gives the
people working in housing suf
ficient time to plan programs and
alot rooms for students who are
coming to Morehouse. Problems
occur only when students do
not follow the specific instruc
tions pertaining to housing.
Crawford urges that all students
pay specific attention to dates,
deadlines and amounts so that
they can have a room confirmed.
It is when this occurs that
programming and scheduling
can be completed, and problems
can be deviated.
*Eric Nelson, Executive Assistant
to the Editor/Staff Writer con
tributed to this article.
N e ws-In-Picture
Prescott Bush (left), brother of Vice President George Bush, and his wife Beth (second
from left), Co-Chairpersons of UNCF’s Lower Connecticut Special Gifts Campaign,
hosted a reception saluting Mr. and Mrs. Edward M.M. Warburg and Mrs. George W.
Merck for their dedication to black higher education. Mrs. Warburg is Director Emeritus
of UNCF. Morehouse College President Dr. Hugh M. Gloster (right) and Laura Jenkins
(second from right) attended the event. Mrs. Philip R. Warner, Chairperson of the
Connecticut Campaign, announced that the 1984 campaign goal is $100,000.