After three consecutive years of overcrowding, administrators expect no significant need for temporary housing this semester, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential and dining services.
Last fall, 74 students received temporary housing assignments. This year, only three have been temporarily placed on campus so far as an emergent and short-term measure, Bova said. These students are expected to move within the next week.
Strain on campus housing decreased partly due to the closing of the Saunders Inn, which added 46 beds to the system, Bova said. The Saunders Inn, a 24-room hotel located in Vartan Gregorian Quad, closed Aug. 7 and was re-purposed for student undergraduate housing beginning this semester. About 75 percent of those beds went to sophomores and 25 percent to juniors, Bova said.
Another reason for the decline is a change in the way rising juniors are handling the off-campus housing process, Bova said. Last year, many rising juniors who applied for off-campus permission later changed their minds, leading to overcrowding, Bova told The Herald last spring. Though he said this is "always a constant problem," last year's applicants are "getting the message that if it is offered to you, you should take it while you have it." The problem is "less intense" this year than it has been in the past, Bova said.
The office also sent a summer email to sophomores and juniors to preemptively prevent students from signing leases to live off-campus before getting permission from Residential Life. Students who do so make it more difficult for the office to predict the number of students who will require on-campus housing.
The waitlist for off-campus permission has been exhausted, Bova said, with about 1,275 students currently living off campus — a figure similar to last year. There are a few who are currently assigned housing and have also signed a lease, but he said they "had been warned multiple times."
Although very few common spaces are being used as rooms this semester, some were converted as a safety measure for the first day of classes, Bova said. This happens every semester to prepare for any last-minute issues that may arise, such as students who decide to return on short notice and students granted off-campus permission who ask to live on campus.
The number of common spaces converted in preparation for this semester was "not as great as last year," Bova said. These rooms will be converted back to lounge spaces with the removal of the normal room furniture over the next two weeks, he added.
Last year many lounges were unavailable, including North Wayland House 101, according to an April 11 article in The Herald. The lounge is now open, according to Krutika Parasar '12, one of the Residential Counselors for Wayland. "We are really happy to have the lounges back to use for programs and activities," said Parasar.
