If the Board of Trustees agrees on the recommendations of the steering committee on the Student Life Initiative, Dartmouth may begin using various incentives to encourage more students to be in residence at the College during the Winter and Summer terms in order to alleviate the yearly housing shortage during the Fall.
The committee report suggested moving CFS rush to Winter term as well as financial and academic incentives in order to attract more students to be on campus in terms other than the fall.
Trustee Peter Fahey '68 said that foreign study programs may be encouraged to take place during the fall and that he would also like to see incentives for non-sophomores to take classes during the Summer term.
"There is a good opportunity to create certain programs in the summer that are attractive to freshmen and juniors," he said, adding that if 200 students took advantage of these opportunities the impact on fall enrollment would likely be significant.
The recommendation is one of many changes proposed in the report designed to increase the continuity of residential life at the College.
Fahey said that the recommendation was included in an attempt to create more level enrollment during each term, a development that would lower the costs of building the additional housing proposed in the report.
"It is more expensive to provide [housing] for the number of students on in the fall," he said, "the less costly way is to level out the number of students who are on campus from term to term, then build the number of dorms to fit the levelized number."
Fahey also said that it is possible that there may continue to be housing shortages even if the recommendations of the report are adopted, though it will depend on how well the College manages its enrollment.
Trustee Susan Dentzer '77 also said the future of housing shortages at the College is uncertain.
Dentzer said that future problems might temporarily be made worse by the possible creation of freshmen housing as well as the time frame for the development of new clusters, though she added that the College's ability to encourage more people to be on in the winter would have some impact on the alleviation of shortages.
"People should not misunderstand," she said. "This should not make a huge dent in enrollment. We're only talking about one to two hundred more people on in the Winter."
Both trustees agreed that the largest impact on continuity of residential life at Dartmouth would come from the proposed increase in the role of the residential cluster system.
They said that more even enrollment of students over the course of the year would make it less costly for the College to implement their proposed plan.
The report also addressed the Dartmouth Plan as an issue that caused a lack of continuity at the College, though it did not make the recommendation that the plan be eliminated or fundamentally changed.
"The D-Plan has costs and benefits," Dentzer said, "but the benefits clearly outweigh the costs."
She added that while the committee did recognize the costs, the students interviewed enjoyed the flexibility of the plan. Dentzer also cited a faculty poll from several years ago in which the faculty also supported the enrollment plan.
Fahey said the committee also did not make a recommendation on the future of the D-Plan because it was beyond the scope of the recommendations they were charged with making.
He added that he would not be opposed to a review of the plan by another committee.
