Herbert Howe, director emeritus of residence halls, confronted a severe housing problem during his tenure.
“The dormitories are affected by depression,” he wrote in a letter to a colleague in 1931.
What Howe was describing was the onset of the economic depression. Trapped in these difficult financial straits, 140 students left Columbia’s dormitories—95 of whom left their academic careers at the college behind altogether. Howe was, at the time, at a loss as to what to do with all of these dormitory vacancies.
Eighty years later, the University faces the entirely opposite problem. The number of residents is on the verge of exceeding housing capacity. Due in large part to an unfavorable housing market, an increase in demand for on-campus housing has caused a dearth of dormitory space. Expanding class sizes threaten to push this problem even further.
In preparation for the housing lottery process that begins today, relevant administrators have been forced to seek more innovative ways to address dormitory space. Walls will be shifted in several dormitories to create additional dorm rooms, a new brownstone will be available for undergraduate housing, and office space will be converted into dorm rooms.
These changes are not occurring in isolation. Wireless internet will be installed in several dorms, floors in some buildings will experience a face-lift, and a host of changes to Barnard’s housing selection process will become a part of the ever-shifting, increasingly competitive game that is the housing selection process.
Reflecting on recent housing history
Last year, on the eve of the release of housing lottery numbers for Columbia College and engineering students, an unexpected announcement was made. An entirely new building would open up to undergraduate students for the first time.
For last year’s lottery, in order to accommodate the 50-student increase in Columbia College’s class of 2013, Harmony Hall was made available for Columbia College and SEAS students participating in General Selection. Located on 110th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway, it had previously been occupied by law and statistics students.
“College enrollment will be increased only to the level our residential facilities can reasonably support, and we have done extensive planning to ensure that,” Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger wrote in an email to students at the time.
The opening of the new dorm to the undergraduate population came on the heels of the University’s reduction of the number of graduate students, which freed up 72 single and six double rooms. And one year later, as dozens of students now reside in Harmony Hall, most have reported a positive experience there, said Lauren Moon, assistant manager of student & guest accommodations, who also said she believes there have not been any transfers out of Harmony.
“It’s a mixed bag—some people love being away from everything, having that type of break,” Brian Birkeland, assistant director of residence halls,said. “I haven’t had any students complain to me about Harmony.”
Alongside the opening of this dorm for the 2009-2010 school year, new layouts creating 30 doubles—and eliminating 30 singles—in Watt, McBain, and Ruggles were implemented in order to make room for the increasing number of students opting for on-campus housing.
But these changes did not eliminate the problem of a dearth of space altogether. Columbia College announced in early February of this year that it would be permanently increasing its first year class size by 50 students to create a new normal. And as administrators begin to discuss ways to continue to accommodate the needs of a permanently larger student body, they have turned their attention toward addressing dormitory space—or lack thereof.
548 meets dorm demand with supply
An entirely new dormitory may not be open to students next year, but a new brownstone will be.
A brownstone at 548 West 113th St. will be included in the 2010 room selection process this year—the first time a brownstone will be included in the housing lottery.
“We ... are in a process of looking at admissions numbers and looking at growth-decision ramifications,” said Scott Wright, vice president of student and administrative services. “Additional first-year students need housing next year, and we have to follow that growth all the way up.”
The walk-up, four-story brownstone has two studio doubles on each floor, and each double has its own bathroom and kitchen. It will house 16 students plus a resident adviser, likely mostly juniors and a few sophomores. Students may choose to enter in groups of two or four, occupying either half the floor or the entire floor.
The brownstone used to house University graduate students, until the students’ leases were up and the brownstone was brought into the undergraduate housing program. It was not included as an option in the room selection process last year because the administration could not get the permits for the buildings approved in time. It currently houses undergraduate transfer students.
“I think you could compare it to the population that lives in Watt, who are mostly juniors who live in the larger studio doubles,” Joyce Jackson, executive director of Housing and Accommodation Services, said. “It’s also comparable to Woodbridge, though 548 is newer and has a little more space [in its rooms].”
“It’s a great way to meet people—I’m close with a lot of the people in the building,” said transfer student Emily Ahn,CC ’12, who currently lives in the brownstone. “This is definitely nicer than anything I could have gotten as a sophomore.”
Knocking down walls, building new rooms
While students residing in the brownstone have noted the building’s spaciousness, others will find themselves in an even more crowded living situation, as rooms are reconfigured to make space for more students.
Changing layouts to existing buildings, and the freeing up of office space will create a slew of new rooms.
In McBain, located on 113th Street and Broadway, two 300-square-foot rooms will be converted into three 200-square-foot rooms on each floor—a change that will make way for 20 new McBain rooms altogether.
In addition, one of the lines in the Ruggles dormitory, located on West 114th Street, will be doubled. Suites that initially housed seven students will now house eight—one room in each of the initially-seven person suites will be converted into a double.
In Harmony Hall, there is a room on the first floor that used to be a superintendent’s apartment, but the super no longer lives there. The apartment will be converted into four singles and one double.
And while recent rumors surfaced that bedrooms would be placed in the lobby in Furnald Hall, the reality is that an office on the first floor will be used as a transient room for students who are experiencing maintenance difficulties in their rooms, according to Wright.
Though the upside is that these dorms will be able to accommodate more students, many said that they are disappointed by the prospect of living in more cramped living quarters.
“I was contemplating picking a single in McBain, but they demolished my hopes, my dreams, and soon my old room—now not only will my room be merged with another room, but there won’t really be any singles left,” Katie Kennedy said, SEAS ’12, who currently lives in one of the rooms that will be converted into one of the three 200-foot rooms.
But while these renovations might cause discomfort for some residents, other renovations set to take place will expand residential space even more.
Among many updates, in East Campus, Hogan, and Broadway, ongoing renovations will continue, including the addition of new furniture, new carpet in common spaces, and the removal of carpet in order to create hard-surface bedroom floors, which alleviates allergy problems. On floors 3 and 4 in Watt, there will be new showers and vanities. In Wien, the completion of bathroom renovations will take place this summer, which will include features such as new shower stalls, entirely tiled marble flooring, energy-efficient fixtures, and granite counter tops. These kinds of changes have already been made on floors 9 to 12 and will be finished in the rest of the building this summer.
“It looks like you’re in a hotel,” Birkeland said of the updates.
But to students who live on the lower floors and will not get to experience these newer bathrooms, the change is not a welcomed one.
“I feel like a second-class Wien-er,” said Zach Levine, CC ’12, who lives on Wien 6, where bathrooms have not yet been renovated. “There’s stalactites coming out of the ceiling, pee and vomit on the floor, and the floor tiles are a hospital blue. This is what I have to live in.”
An unpredictable numbers game
Despite student predictions and speculations on lottery cutoff numbers and changes in dorm popularity, based on housing precedents, current numerical data can be deceptive, housing administrators say.
So far, the number of students registered for on-campus housing for the 2010-2011 school year is 3,965, according to Wright. And though this is approximately the same number of students who registered last year, little is set in stone.
The number of students who will be studying abroad will not be confirmed until June, but even those students intending to study abroad had to register for the housing lottery.
There are also a number of students who will declare to live off-campus, particularly now that many are saying that the housing market is becoming more attractive than it has been in recent years. These students, too, may have registered in the housing lottery.
And some students may opt not to return to campus altogether, for health or other reasons, but have registered for housing as well. All of these factors taken together make it difficult to formulate any sort of hypothesis that can accurately foretell which students will ultimately end up in which dormitory, according to housing administrators.
“These are unpredictable but uncertain figures,” Wright said. “This is a broad indicator which could swing by the hundreds.”
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