A shortage of on-campus housing this term forced the Office of Residential Life to place 11 freshmen in converted study lounges, storage spaces and area coordinator offices as one of several measures to provide sufficient housing.
Director of Housing Services Lynn Rosenblum said several factors caused this year's housing crunch, including the exceptionally large size of the freshman class, which has more than 1,100 members.
A drop in available off-campus programs this year also contributed to the tight situation, Rosenblum said. In addition, she said she believed more students wanted to live on campus than in past years.
Rosenblum said the Office of Residential Life was able to house all members of the Class of 2002, although one freshman chose to live off campus.
Upperclass students who applied by the deadline received housing. In late August, 15 members of the Class of 2001 were still on the waitlist, but everyone was eventually accommodated.
Twenty-four students are living in the College-owned apartments on West Wheelock street since there is no space for them in the residence halls.
But ORL could only suggest off-campus locations and affinity or Coed Fraternity and Sorority houses to those students who had missed the housing deadline.
Rosenblum said the College is always prepared for a housing crunch, although it generally comes as a surprise when it happens.
"There's little you can do to predict it or plan for it," she said.
Converting lounges and offices is one solution. The rooms converted this year were already equipped with telephone lines and computer ports since the rooms had originally been student rooms, Rosenblum said.
Jon Block '02, who lives in the former AC Office in Mid-Fayerweather, said he and his roommates like their carpeted, 420 square-foot two-room triple, a converted storage space.
"It's really nice, and actually it's very spacious," he said. "People are surprised at how big it is."
The room has dozens of useful shelves, but the shelves leave no space for posters, Block said.
His roommate Andrew Bollinger '02 said he thought their room was larger than most freshman rooms, so he is happy with it.
Since the Mid-Fayerweather residence hall is on a hill, Bollinger said, the room's location in the basement is like living on the first floor, so the room has full windows.
But Block said his floor might be boring since his room is the only freshman room.
Sarah Bradford '02, who is living in a one-room triple which used to be the Topliff basement lounge, said she likes the room's size, but it is also quite public since it has three large windows.
The room's original set-up was also somewhat awkward as the furniture was not yet placed, so she and her roommates set it up themselves, Bradford said.
When the College created the Office of Residential Life in 1982, some student rooms were converted to lounges and offices for programming reasons.
Early this summer, ORL identified those rooms as most appropriate to convert to student rooms and furnished them. Three of the rooms became triples and one is now a double.
Rosenblum said it is still unclear whether the students will remain in the converted rooms until Spring term. This decision depends on whether more spaces open up as upperclassmen take leave terms or some freshmen decide not to return to the College in the winter.
Rosenblum said she believes students will miss the study lounges and common areas. "We're not happy to have to use those spaces," she said.
All the converted rooms were ready by the time the term started for the freshman class, Rosenblum said, though some rooms may not have been ready when pre-season athletes came to the College at the end of summer or when students arrived for the early Dartmouth Outing Club trips.
The last housing crisis occurred in 1994, when more than 400 students were wait-listed for Fall term housing. ORL, for the first time in its history, had to write to 200 members of the Classes of 1996 and 1997 to tell them there was no way to provide them with housing.
The office included in its letter to the 200 students a list of available rental properties, only a few of which were in Hanover.
