Apartments for rent -- kitchen, large bedroom, private bath, network connection, cable television, parking and central campus location. Competitive price.
An off-campus apartment with these amenities would be a coveted piece of real estate, and could cost far more than $1,200 each term. The College's 11 affinity houses offer many of these benefits, and a few additional ones, but many remain unfilled even after the College's regular residence halls fill to capacity.
Most of the affinity houses are affiliated with an academic department and are open to students studying the discipline.
An escape from dorm life
The affinity housing programs offer students 145 beds in on-campus settings which offer the amenities of life in a private home. Since they face the same housing demands as the Office of Residential Life, however, many programs have wait-lists for Fall term, but remain unfilled in other terms.
For many, the affinity housing programs provide the benefits of off-campus housing -- larger living spaces, private kitchens and bathrooms and cable television -- with the amenities of dorm life -- network connections, location and College billing.
In addition, the concentration of students with common interests tends to create a strong community within the housing programs.
Assistant Dean of Residential Life Mary Liscinsky said affinity housing provides students with the opportunity to live in a different environment while still living on campus.
"We are telling students we'd love to have you live on campus, but you don't have to live in a residence hall with a long corridor and a bathroom at the end of the hall," Liscinsky said. "You can live in a house, cook with your friends, have your professors over to dinner in a casual setting."
Many students who live in affinity programs said they definitely feel a greater sense of community compared to the residence halls.
Heather Bach '97, who lives in the International House at Brewster Hall, said most of the residents know each other before they live there.
She said the nice bedrooms were an added advantage.
Charlene Campbell '98, who has lived in Cutter-Shabazz Hall for two years, said she likes living with people with similar interests.
"You always know that someone is there for you," Campbell said. "My freshmen year I never got to know the people who lived on my floor, except for my UGA group, as much as I got to know the people here."
Genevieve Jacobs '98 said she decided to move into the Native American House last summer -- and has lived there ever since -- because she already spent a lot of time there, and the rooms were nice.
"I already knew everyone before I moved it, and I know everyone that comes around," Jacobs said. "It feels safer."
Housing problems
Some students choose to live in affinity houses in the overcroweded fall when the prospect of obtaining regular residence hall housing seems slim or they are placed on the waiting list.
Director of Housing Services Lynn Rosenblum said she sends updates to waitlisted students to inform them of the affinity option after regular housing assignments are made.
"I also send the wait-list to all of the affinity programs with vacancies to see if anyone is eligible," she added.
If no one applies to live in an affinity program, sometimes the living spaces can be assigned as regular rooms.
"I can do that fairly easily with the spaces that are in the residence halls," Rosenblum said. "But when they are in a free-standing building, I can't do that."
Some affinity houses -- such as the Russian Suites in Zimmerman residence hall, and the German, Hillel and Spanish apartments in Maxwell residence hall -- are incorporated in residence halls.
These apartments in the River Cluster are perhaps the most desired on-campus housing. Each apartment contains a living area with cable television, a full-sized kitchen, a bathroom and four single bedrooms, each with its own telephone line.
The 35 River apartments set aside for seniors each year are the first housing area to fill up each year.
But Rosenblum said even the affinity housing in the River apartments does not always fill.
Two apartments are set aside for Hillel, for students who wish to live and uphold Jewish traditions and have the opportunity to keep a Kosher kitchen.
She said the four-person Hillel apartment for females was occupied Fall term through the affinity program, but lack of interest from men forced her to assign the male Hillel apartment to seniors.
La Casa, the Spanish and Latin American language and culture affinity house, has 11 student beds, but last term it housed only six, according to Faculty Resident Cecilia Carrizo.
Carrizo said it is very difficult to fill La Casa in the winter, but it is usually full in the fall and spring. She said sometimes interviews are necessary to narrow down candidates for Fall term.
Cutter-Shabazz, the African-American affinity house, has structural characteristics that make keeping the house filled difficult. As there is only one bathroom on each floor -- and the facility is coed by floor -- a female who wants to live in the house cannot fill vacancies on male floors, and the rooms remain unoccupied.
Program Advisor and Class of 1999 Dean Sylvia Langford said there is a plan to add a second set of bathroom facilities to each floor, and the renovations might happen over the summer.
Cutter-Shabazz has 27 beds, but only 21 are currently occupied.
Langford said as the campus begins to better understand the concept of affinity housing, she thinks it may be easier to fill the building in terms other than the fall.
Full houses
While some affinity houses have vacancies in the Winter and Spring terms, some, like Foley House and the International House, are consistently full.
Foley House Program Advisor Robert Braile, an environmental studies professor, said Foley is not affiliated with a specific academic department, but instead is oriented around the idea of communal living.
According to an unofficial Foley mission statement, Foley residents are "devoted to the idea of self-actualization through cooperative living, and the development of a more complete individual and citizen of civil society."
Student Program Liaison Pieter Ott '98 said Foley has 10 beds and usually about 20 interested students. But he said it is "sort of hard to estimate because there's a fair amount of continuity of residence."
The International House at Brewster Hall, located behind the Hopkins Center, has 26 beds and usually has a waiting list for residency, according to Student Program Liaison Samina Karim '98.
The house is composed entirely of spacious single rooms and houses many seniors, she said.
Although the International House is not affiliated with any academic department or program, Karim said, they "aim to keep international affairs as a focus." She said up to 40 percent of residents are non-international students with interests in world affairs.
About 10 to 12 students apply to live in the Asian Studies Center each term, and the house has eight beds, according to Administrative Assistant Deb Zuger.
She said students living in the house must be competent enough in Chinese to carry on a conversation. "Many of the resident directors are faculty appointed from China, and for the most part, this is their first time in the States," Zuger said. "So knowledge of Chinese is essential."
Kade Center Program Advisor Tatiana Naumova said the German apartments in the Kade Center, part of Maxwell Hall, usually have more applicants than they can house. The Kade center consists of five River apartments housing 20 students.
According to Francophone House Administrative Assistant Gerard Bohlen, but only three students can live in the house, eight applied to live there last term.
Advisor Stephanie Hull wrote in an e-mail message that program coordinators are "hoping eventually to have a consistent enough excess of demand that a larger house seems warranted."
