Three roommates. Two closets. One problem?
“There’s no way I’m going to fit all my stuff in here!” said Emily Verger ’09 as she walked into her triple in Regis on move-in day.
But after one and a half semesters, Verger and her roommates have found a niche for every personal item and have found a new home within their crowded situation. In fact, they actually turned down the offer to de-triple in early December.
LIFE WITH AN EXTRA ROOMMATE
About one-third of the freshman class started out the year in triples. Since then, about half of those rooms have been de-tripled as the Fairfield housing office struggles with how to best manage a continued overflow of students.
“The three of us are now best friends. If you get along and are respectful of each other, you will be OK. Even if you have no space. I mean, look, there’s no space,” she said while doing her homework with her laptop lying on top of her bunk-bed.
Sarah Nelson ’07, a resident assistant in Regis, said the students living in three of the five triples on her floor accepted the offer to de-triple.
“The girls who de-tripled just wanted more space,” she said. “The girls who didn’t were really getting along and so they could put up with the space issue.”
However, for some freshmen, the option of de-tripling has saved their first-year experience at Fairfield. Space was not the only concern.
One freshman, who asked to remain anonymous, found himself in a two-against-one battle every day. Feeling like the third wheel, he hoped his room would be offered de-tripling.
Before Christmas break, he and his roommates were offered a chance to de-triple, so second semester he moved out of the conflict and in with someone whose two roommates transferred schools.
“The living situation is a lot better now,” he said. “I’m happier.”
HOUSING’S RESPONSE
“Our main job here is to make sure all students are comfortable, happy and safe,” said Kristen Pierce of the office of Residence Life and Housing.
The responsibilities of Housing include calming down nervous students and their parents over the summer, working to de-triple rooms throughout the year and planning new ways to deal with the housing shortage.
Although it’s a “good problem” for Housing to face, Pierce says that “the hope is that the next incoming classes will be smaller.” To be on the practical and safe side, Housing has already planned for a large freshman class and is using the halls with larger rooms for the tripled rooms, and is developing plans for a new residence hall to be built on the quad.
The issue of tripling scares a lot of incoming freshmen and causes a lot of stress both before and during the year.
“The most stressful part about adjusting to life at college was living in a triple,” said Beth Masterson ’09.
RAs and the First Year Experience (FYE) program are available for tripled-freshmen to use as resources to help them deal with the additional stress and conflicts of their living situations, and stay positive about new experiences.
“Many freshmen have never had to share a room with anyone their whole life,” said Deirdre Eller, the director of the FYE program.
Every freshman has to adjust and learn how to live with a new person’s habits and personality, but the students in triples have to deal with two new people, as well as the issue of limited space.
“I like to tell freshmen that [being in a triple] means they have one more friend and one more group of friends,” said Eller.
A NATIONAL TREND
The housing shortage is not unique to Fairfield. Tripling is happening all across the country.
Ohio University added almost 200 beds to meet the demands of an higher-than-predicted freshmen class size estimated around 4,000. After one quarter of the year though, there was immediate relief for the student overcrowding, as withdrawals and 120 no-show students created more space.
Syracuse University enrolled 460 more students than the 3,035 they intended to for the Class of 2009. To accommodate, the University is in the process of planning to build a new dormitory, specifically to house more freshmen and sophomores. It would take 18 months to plan and 18 months to construct such a hall.
NEXT YEAR: PROBLEM SOLVED?
The freshmen tripling issue here at Fairfield might not be such a problem next year. According to Kurt Schlichting, a member of the University’s Enrollment Management Group and a sociology professor, the undergraduate admissions office is admitting fewer students this year for the Class of 2010, with a target of 820 to 830 students. This might help to balance out last year’s incoming class size of 940, Schlichting said.
“This still doesn’t solve the problem [of the housing shortage]. Now the sophomores will have a housing issue,” said Schlichting.
But what if Fairfield keeps admitting more and more students? According to Schlichting, that’s not possible. Demographic and population statistics from professional research show that in about three or four years, the number of high school graduates in the regions of New England, New York and New Jersey will decline, and consequently, the number of students applying to Fairfield in the near future will also decline.
A large incoming class simply means that Residence Life has to create triples and that adjunct professors are asked to teach extra classes. If Fairfield ever saw an exceptionally large class, not only would the University have a hard time accommodating and finding beds and desks for everybody, but also the uniqueness of this University would weaken.
“It would be the perfect storm,” said Schlichting with a laugh. “Fairfield has no plans to grow.”
The one-on-one interaction between students and professors and a small campus are characteristics Fairfield thrives on.
“We do what we do well. We don’t want to change that,” said Schlichting.
Predicting how many students will accept their admittance letter is an inexact science. These days, high school graduates are applying to as many as 23 colleges, according to a New York Times article. With electronic applications, and many schools waiving application fees, it is easier for students to apply to more schools. Therefore, colleges are seeing many more applicants than they have in the past.
Thus, the Class of 2010’s size will remain a mystery until the first day of school this fall. But the issue of triples and the housing shortage should not be a huge conflict.
“It’s been very stressful,” said Masterson, “but learning to adapt and deal with it has been a part of my freshman experience.”
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