Resident Life waitlist surges past 1,500

About 550 more students than last year are now on waitlists for on-campus housing, and dorm space is so tight that the campus occupancy rate is the third-highest in university history, officials from the Resident Life Department said yesterday.

Rooms that once housed two students now house three, and rooms that were once lounges are now housing as many as four students, Deb Grandner, the director of Resident Life said. Grandner ordered lounge and room conversions that opened up 180 more spaces, but the waitlist is still the longest since 1980.

"We're absolutely full," Grandner said. "We're using all of our beds."

The outlook for students on the waitlist is bleak, she said, and is unlikely to brighten in the spring. Most years, Resident Life depends on about 500 spaces opening via graduating seniors leaving the campus in December and study abroad students leaving the country. This year, Resident Life can't even estimate how many spaces will open because seniors were shut out from housing in March.

Regardless of how many spots open up, demand for housing in the spring will be strong: Grandner said 725 spots are already promised to new-to-housing freshmen students.

Grandner said next fall will likely be just as bad, saying, "My belief is that we will not be able to house seniors again next year."

Chris Ziesat, a fifth-year senior who lost his housing guarantee last semester said that the housing crisis has affected his schoolwork.

"It's an enormous inconvenience for me from a studying standpoint," said Ziesat. "I'm going to be spending time traveling that I would have spent studying."

Ziesat, a history major, is one of 1,552 students on the waitlist for housing and is currently commuting from his Columbia home, spending at least an hour in the car each day.

For students like Alex Morris, it was the late notice that was particularly infuriating, especially since Morris had turned down offers to move into South Campus Commons only weeks earlier.

After he was notified of the crisis, Morris, a senior criminology and criminal justice major, started a Facebook group titled, "Seniors, Fight for Our Housing." The group has just under 300 members, and posts on the site range from angry declarations to advertisements for off-campus rooms.

"Initially, I started the group out of anger because I couldn't believe the university could do this," Morris said. "But I like that it turned into a forum for people to find housing."

Morris was lucky enough to have friends in Sigma Phi Epsilon, who were able to arrange for him to be a boarder in the fraternity's house.

Morris certainly doesn't feel lucky in his small, dormitory-style room, especially since he was living in an on-campus apartment in Allegany Hall last semester.

"When I was moving in, I was filled with this rage all over again," Martin said. "I feel like I've been downgraded … I just expected more from the university."

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