Campus life administrators spoke to the Undergraduate Council of Students about the Undergraduate Housing Initiative at the council's general body meeting in Petteruti Lounge Wednesday night.
Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey '91 MA'06 and Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president for campus life and dean of student life, discussed the University's effort to increase available on-campus housing, particularly attractive housing options for juniors and seniors who might consider living off campus.
Referencing a graph comparing Brown's housing capacity to peer institutions such as Cornell, Harvard and Yale Universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carey said Brown is at the low end of the spectrum in terms of the percentage of students it houses on campus. The University can provide housing to 80 percent of its undergraduate student body, while over 90 percent of students live on campus at other comparable universities.
"From my perspective, having 20 percent or more students living off campus is not a place where we want to be, and implies that we aren't meeting the needs of current students," Carey said. "I also think there are a lot of educational opportunities missing when 20 percent of students are living off campus."
The University is looking to add approximately 600 beds over several years, thereby raising the portion of students who could live on campus to 90 percent. Carey said such a move would provide housing for all students enrolled in their sixth semester or lower and increase the number of seniors who could choose to live on campus.
This year, 73 percent of juniors and only 39 percent of seniors are living on campus. In recent years, the number of juniors choosing to live off campus has risen steadily, while the number of seniors living off campus has fluctuated. Carey said he believes that more students have chosen to remain on campus because residence halls have increasingly included more desirable amenities like wireless Internet. As seniors choose suites and apartment-style housing in Young Orchard Apartments and Vartan Gregorian Quadrangle, the amount of this type of housing available for juniors is consistently insufficient, Carey said.
Currently, less than 20 percent of Brown's housing is comprised of suites and apartment-style accommodations, a figure that is "way off what our peer institutions offer," Carey said.
"The heavy emphasis has to be on singles," Carey said. "I think in terms of goals and priorities we would start by thinking about singles. I don't imagine that opening a new residence hall with apartments with doubles would be attractive to seniors by any stretch."
While the University will continue to allow students to apply for off-campus housing, Carey said he hopes the administration will be able to build attractive housing that meets students' needs.
"We want to increase the sense of an overall Brown community so that the residential halls don't feel like just a place to sleep or a hotel," Carey said.
Carey also explained how the Undergraduate Housing Initiative fits into the Plan for Academic Enrichment.
"The Plan for Academic Enrichment identified housing as a priority," Carey said. "It was not at the front of our minds initially but it has definitely gained some momentum since last spring."
Enhancing the educational benefits of being part of the residential community in terms of academic advising, student programming and faculty interaction is among the University's goals in planning new housing, Carey said.
Several UCS members posed questions about whether the administration plans to focus on renovating existing residence halls as the University continues to expand.
"In terms of weighing what I think is the biggest problem for Brown I would argue that capacity is of somewhat higher priority," Carey said. He added that the University does consider renovations an important issue for the future.
While there will be similar initiatives to expand the housing offered to graduate and medical students, Carey directed his remarks toward the need to increase undergraduate housing, specifically for juniors and seniors.
At the beginning of the meeting, the council elected Ellie Cutler '10 as an at-large representative in an internal election. Cutler said she would like to work with the administration to bring a program to Brown in which movies would be shown on campus at cheap prices before their release on DVD. A similar program exists at the University of Virginia, Cutler said.
During committee reports, Academic and Administrative Affairs Chair Sara Damiano '08 announced that there are still several spaces remaining for students wishing to participate in January@Brown, the University's new winter session.
