Housing crunch still looking for short-term answers

Despite concrete plans for a new residence hall, the on-campus housing shortage has many administrators at a loss on what kind of solution the problem requires.

When an additional 130 rising seniors requested on-campus housing last year compared with the year before, limited housing space and low lottery numbers sent many rising juniors, who choose on-campus housing last, into a frantic search for off-campus living. But the time students from other classes had chosen their rooms, only 70 were left for a junior class of approximately 1,200.

In addition, an estimated 20 freshman did not receive housing in the lottery, although they were later given housing after the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) found space for them.

Officials predict a similar situation to arise this year. "I don't have any reason to expect this year's experience will be much different than last year's," Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said. "We do not have a new building online, and the class size is about the same."

There are tentative plans for a new dorm on Talbot Avenue with approximately 150 beds, about the same size as Bush and Hodgdon. The University will begin construction next spring and the dorm should be finished by the fall of 2004.

But even with a new dorm built, there's no consensus on whether it will make a difference.

Former Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Jesse Levey (LA '02) made a presentation to the Board of Trustees last May to highlight the lack of improvement in Tufts' housing.

The new dorm, according to Levey, does not even begin to attack the housing problem. "The University is unwilling spend the money on the 300-350 bed facility that would be needed to a make a dent," he said.

The University does not refute Levey's theory but lacks the space and the funds to build a bigger dorm. "If we could have built something larger, we would," Reitman said. "There's no [space] left on campus compared to our last project, which was South Hall."

The planned dorm "will not meet the housing demand," Reitman said, but the University has limited resources. "[We] would love to see more done," he said.

With the new dorm still at least two years away, ResLife has also looked into other options for helping students deal with the housing crunch, including a survey of the junior class to determine how heavy the housing demand will be in the spring.

In the short term, changes to the lottery system are the best option, according to the Trustee Representative for the TCU Senate, senior Raji Iyer.

"We need a short-term solution, and that's getting the lottery numbers out earlier," Iyer said.

Iyer, along with the TCU Student-Facility Committee, is trying to advance the distribution of lottery numbers from March to December so juniors have time to look for off-campus housing.

While the Dean of Students' Office and ResLife are looking into the process, a final decision will not be made for several weeks.

ResLife came under fire last year for not following through on its plan to release the numbers early.

This year, ResLife and the Office of Student Services say they are receptive to the current plan for earlier lottery release, although there are still several uncertainties.

Lottery numbers have traditionally been handed out in the spring, when enrollment is reasonably certain for the upcoming semester. Numbers released earlier would be based on what Reitman calls an estimate of enrollment, and would therefore be less precise.

As transfer students are enrolled, they would receive randomly-generated numbers from those numbers remaining. This makes a large difference _ especially for rising juniors, whose housing options are limited.

"The junior year is very popular for students to take leaves of absences and for transfers, which we've seen an increase in," Reitman said. Approximately 400 students enter or leave the junior class after the fall term.

Figures like these worry Associate Housing Director Lorraine Toppi who is concerned with what effect these changes would have on lottery numbers if they were to be issued earlier. "The earlier numbers are issued, the more we will have to go in and make changes manually," Toppi said.

"Once the kids start thinking that you're changing someone's lottery number, you have people who start to say 'whoa _ that's not fair,'" she said.

There are also fears of mass confusion among freshmen, who would be issued numbers just three months after arriving at Tufts for the next year. "[Freshmen] are barely settled as it is," Toppi said. "They don't know what lottery system is. They start panicking."

Lottery numbers have traditionally been accompanied by literature from ResLife detailing dorm options and explaining the lottery system.

Although there is considerable debate about what actions Tufts should take in the short-term to alleviate the housing crunch, there is agreement about where the school should ultimately be headed _ providing on-campus housing for everyone who wants it.

The University hopes to one day accomplish this, Reitman said. "I would like to meet demand for all students who want to live on campus, but I don't want to sacrifice any flexibility because there are students who want to live off-campus."

For students like freshman Ellen Kasson, who was placed in a forced triple her first year, long-term goals are not the primary concern. "I feel like I've been cheated," she said. "I don't know what is going to happen next year."