All freshmen have now moved into their residence halls after a five-day delay in obtaining occupancy permits for three of the six buildings in the McLaughlin residence hall cluster forced many students returning from their Dartmouth Outing Club Trips to temporarily move into other residence halls.
"Our first concern is that we don't want to put students in a building that isn't safe," Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said of the delay, which was for safety inspections.
Students on trip sections H and I who were assigned to Thomas, Goldstein and Byrne residence halls -- a total of 16 students -- were moved into the Lodge for one or two nights while their dorms were inspected according to Director of Undergraduate Housing Rachael Class-Giguere. While they were not permitted to sleep in the residence halls, students could drop off their belongings there.
Additionally, undergraduate advisors and students arriving for Native American orientation were also affected by the delay.
"We were hoping this wouldn't be the case, but it's not unexpected," Redman said of the delay. "We've had contingency plans sitting in a drawer, so we're implementing phase one of the contingency plan."
The dorms were scheduled to receive their occupancy permits on Sept. 6, the day freshmen started to return to campus from their DOC trips, but did not receive their permits until Sept. 11.
"Like any construction project, you can't plan everything and things happen," Class-Giguere said. "Not everything happens as quickly as you'd like. We have students arriving for basically a month. There just wasn't any way for them to have everything ready."
Anticipating this problem, the Office of Residential Life made sure to assign any freshman on trip sections E through G to older dorms in the Choates or in the River.
As part of the rerouting of students, ORL made the decision early on to keep Hitchcock and Topliff residence halls vacant in case the occupancy permit delay stretched out for weeks instead of days.
Because of this, students on trip sections E through I, who typically stay in Hitchcock and Topliff residence halls during the nights before their trips, were moved to Leverone Field House.
"Leverone, at least from our perspective, turned out to be a great alternative to accomplish the program goals for the first night," Redman said.
Many students said they actually enjoyed sleeping in Leverone and welcomed the change.
"I enjoyed it more than sleeping in Topliff. The turf was soft, and H-Croo told the Doc Benton story. It was like a giant slumber party," said Steve Spitz '09, a leader on Section I.
Though freshmen might not have noticed the difference, some trip leaders saw a downside in a multi-trip sleepover.
"The only issue was that sleeping with all the other groups took away some of our bonding time with our trips," Devin Fallon '08 said.
Despite the accommodations, some freshmen were nervous about returning to incomplete dorms.
"I can tell you that a lot of the [freshmen] who I met on Section A of DOC Trips are uncomfortable about moving into unfinished dorms," Michael Brasher '10 said. "It adds anxiety to what's already not an easy time."
Despite an uncertain housing situation, DOC trips went as planned.
"The best part of trips was being the first years' first contact at the school. I had a lot of fun answering their questions and assuaging their fears. Besides, they would believe almost anything you told them," Spitz said. "Being a trip leader was almost more fun than being a trippee."
Many of the finishing touches have yet to be completed in the new residence halls, according to a Blitzmail message sent to freshmen students by Class-Giguere. Televisions and bulletin boards have to be installed, but should be in place within the first or second week of school. Landscaping and finishing touches should be completed by the end of September, while mechanical work will take place all term.
