As a former four-year campus housing resident with three years’ experience working Welcome Week — two of which were as a resident assistant — I can comfortably assign myself veteran status when it comes to moving freshmen into the halls.
In light of the housing shortage and the accommodations being devised by Residential Programs and Services, I do not envy those slotted to serve during Welcome Week coming up in a few short weeks.
Fortunately, the people at RPS — especially the assignments office — are basically the David Copperfields of housing overflow accommodations, pulling all the stops to conjure new spaces for overflow seemingly out of thin air.
The numbers are in constant flux, even this time of year, but RPS Director of Residential Life Jacque Bollinger says their department is optimistic the 225 to 275 incoming residents — depending on the fluxuating figures of the day — without a room will have a place.
“We’ll be able to house our students in a way that may not be ideal but will still be a positive experience,” Bollinger said.
Every feasible lounge is being converted into a residential space, rendering about 400 places for overflow, according to Bollinger.
IU is also breaking from tradition by placing freshmen in Willkie under the supervision of RAs hired this week. Willkie upperclassmen were consolidated to make space for overflow floors just for freshmen, and some lucky Willkie residents were offered housing in Union Street Center for the cost of Willkie.
Bollinger said break housing and converted office space available in Eigenmann are additional areas where more space can be made for the unexpected abundance of residents.
“This is really a problem to celebrate,” said RPS Director of Finance Marcy Simpson.
She makes a fair point. This truly is the best litmus for how the University is doing, and being a little over-capacity is definitely better than suffering morbidly low enrollment.
Not to mention the financial benefits. It turns out RPS intentionally budgets for slightly under-occupied student housing. The extra residents and their payments for room and board will cover the costs of overtime labor, custodial work, readying spaces and renting furniture and leave RPS a comfortable surplus.
Said chunk of change is then available to contribute to other RPS projects benefiting residents, making this unexpected challenge ultimately “good for the students,” Simpson said.
All the while, RPS staff have been performing customer service jiu-jitsu on the army of irate parent calls that followed the wave of room assignments that first indicated a shortage of spaces.
That’s the thing about parents: There’s something about the intense array of emotions brought on by their offspring moving to college that triggers protective instincts which would intimidate a grizzly caught in a bear trap.
This is why I fear for the RAs and Welcome Week student volunteers when the My Child is the Best and Deserves the Best Convention comes to town at the end of August.
Not all parents are like this. Some have already worked the frustration out of their system. Some are understanding of the circumstances and perhaps are even placing the blame on their own child for not completing their housing application sooner.
Other parents are ready to rampage and will give a piece of their mind to anything that moves. The fact that Indiana in the late summer wreaks havoc on parental tempers should also be kept in mind.
So, if your inconsolably incensed legal guardian is on a warpath, suggest they air their grievances to the people more responsible for the problem than the guy in the Welcome Week t-shirt in charge of the move-in carts.
This cluster-you-know-what aptly called the “perfect storm” in an RPS blogpost is the result of two clashing fronts.
The incoming class of students is our largest yet and a noticeable increase from last year’s. And now IU is requiring them to live on campus when RPS is down approximately 600 beds due to spaces lost at Collins and Read residence halls.
The decrease in available space isn’t new information to the IU Office of Admissions, which begs the question as to why the factor that should have limited the size of invited students seems disregarded.
At first, I wondered if the shortage of rooms for freshmen was bolster further by existing residents renewing their housing contracts following a successful #becausecampus campaign. However, according to the Office of the Provost, there were actually fewer residents re-contracted for this year than the previous year.
It is fair that, since IU is a state school, essentially sixty-six percent of the students accepted don’t actually come here. Perhaps Admissions was trying to compensate for possible students lost due to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or IU’s changed merit-based scholarship requirements, which reduced access to financial aid.
It is true this is a numbers game for Admissions and the University has to invite more potential students than there is legitimate space.
Airlines do the same with plane tickets. But this isn’t a three-hour flight to Panama City Beach. We’re talking about spaces where human beings will be living and trying to learn.
Perhaps the people in the administration are too removed from the students, and from their high perch they only see students as dollar signs.
So if you find your folks are fuming, make sure those phone calls are going to appropriate places. Assignments can do virtually nothing at this point, and getting in a huff as you move in will be equally ineffectual.
Meanwhile, RPS will be cleaning up after the perfect storm.
gmleeds@indiana.edu
