Committee Faults GS, Grad Housing

Discussions about the state of housing for the School of General Studies students came to a climax at a University Senate Housing Committee hearing on Friday.

The hearing, intended to address grievances voiced in the past month over the state and quality of GS and graduate student housing, featured speakers from various levels of the Columbia housing administrators and took place in Jerome Greene Hall preceding the monthly plenary meeting.

Debate centered around the discrepancies in both quality and availability of GS housing. Currently, University Apartment Housing provides services to 344 out of approximately 1,200 GS students. Students are placed in residences across 82 different buildings owned or leased by the University.

Speakers Monica Kuth, acting director of leasing services for facilities; Dominic Stellini, the GS associate dean of students; David Greenberg, the associate vice president of finance and administration; Mark Kerman, the assistant vice president of residential operations; Scott Wright, the vice president of student and administrative services; and Susannah Karlsson, former General Studies Student Council president, all weighed in on the current housing problem.

GS is experiencing a “dearth of housing,” according to Stellini, who explained that this is a common problem in Columbia schools across the board. “Our housing allocation numbers don’t meet our needs—I am not sure that they meet any school’s needs.”

There were also complaints of a discrepancy in the quality of housing for GS students compared to other undergraduate facilities. Greenberg told the panel that most facilities are renovated on a cycle. Kitchens, he explained, are replaced every 10 years, and bathrooms every 20—that is, if units are vacant long enough to be renovated. “A lot has to do with occupancy and our ability to get into units that are vacant so that we can fully renovate them,” he said.

The 600 W. 113th St. building was used as an example throughout the hearing, as it is used for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as GS and graduate housing. CC and SEAS floors are separated from GS and graduate floors. The CC and SEAS floors were recently renovated, while the upper floors are in a general state of disrepair.

The main reason for the difference in renovations, according to Kremer, was because the lower floors were vacated for six to seven weeks while the old apartments were being transferred to CC and SEAS housing units. “That allowed us to accelerate the cycle,” said assistant vice president of residential operations Mark Kerman. “Obviously we can’t cycle through every kitchen and every bathroom in the same year. ... We are trying to always juggle all of the cycles.”

But the biggest issue still up in the air is that of capacity. The amount of space that the University has is finite, and expansion of facilities, the speakers said, was not their responsibility. “We don’t go to the provost and say, ‘By the way, you need another 500 of these,’” Kerman said.

“That’s really more of an academic issue,” added David Greenberg, associate vice president of finance and administration. “We’ll meet the needs as facilities as a real estate organization.”

Graduate students, who also get their housing through UAH, were noticeably absent from the meeting. There were two representatives on the panel, but no graduate student speakers. According to GS student Paige Lampkin, co-chair of the housing committee, several graduate students were invited, but could not attend at the last minute.

Jan Allen and Darice Birge, the associate deans of Ph.D. and master’s programs, respectively, at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, both attended the hearing as audience members, but offered their own input. “We’ve come up with some solutions, and we have worked well with Monica and Mark,” Allen said.

The few GSAS students who attended the hearing expressed content with their housing situations and suggested that GS students focus their attention on the new space that would open up due to Manhattanville expansion plan.

shane.ferro@columbiaspectator.com