Housing headaches continue

By Jessica Alway

Although Santa Clara has made efforts to accommodate the increasing population of on campus residents, the Housing and Residence Life Office continued to face problems as students returned for the start of the new school year.

This was the first year that the university arranged housing solely based on Residential Learning Community (RLC) placement, not class year or roommate choice. Naturally, the new process raised new concerns.

The main problem this year was that the rooms reserved for some students might not have been within their desired Residential Learning Community. Students were no longer given the option to choose which building they wanted to live in or room with a friend in a different RLC. The building and roommate options were dictated by the student's current RLC.

"We were confronted with a whole new slue of problems this year," said Marc Alejandro the administrative assistant of housing and residence life. "People had places to go unlike last year which is great, so instead all the complaints seemed to be centered around students not living in the buildings they wanted and with the people they wanted to."

Maggie Malagon, also from the housing department agreed. "The RLCs brought a different dynamic to the process," Malagon said. "Not all students shared the vision the university had for the program. It became our job to find enough living spaces within the communities that people wanted to live in."

Nearly 2,175 students live on campus - almost half of the undergraduate population. The on-campus numbers have been growing steadily over the years from about 40 percent to almost 50 percent this year. With that many people to satisfy, housing headaches are inevitable.

Dunne Hall, housing the Modern Perspectives RLC posed the largest problem. According to Director of Housing, Linda Franke, Modern Perspectives is one of the most popular RLCs. At the end of room selection 35 people were still on the wait list to enter Dunne. The longest wait list, though, belonged to the Alpha/Arts RLC, the largest on campus. Nearly 50 students left school last year without confirmation that they would be living within the Alpha/Arts RLC located at Alameda South.

Franke believes the housing process has greatly improved compared to last year, when the department was forced to rent a hotel nearly a mile from campus to accommodate the overflow of students. "It definitely wasn't any harder than last fall," said Franke.

According to Franke, the success is due to extensive planning last spring and summer. Housing took extra precautions to make sure the process went a little smoother than prior years, designating 97 rooms in Dunne, Campisi, Graham, San Filippo and the Alamedas for triples to accommodate the largest number of students possible.

As a result, at the end of room selection in the spring of last year the university could guarantee housing to all returning students wishing to live on campus in addition to the projected number of freshmen that would arrive in the fall.

Although not all students on the wait list made it into their desired RLC, most did due to cancellations and other unexpected openings. Sophomores Shaunda Brown and Jessica Frank were among those low on the wait list to find housing within Dunne. Brown was in the Ancient American RLC last year and changed to Modern Perspectives to room with Frank, already a part of Modern Perspectives.

"I was really worried for most of the summer," said Brown. "Most of my friends live in Dunne and I wanted to be with them. But ultimately I think housing did a good job. Even though it took some time, I get to be here, where I wanted to be all along."

Not all students are as happy as Brown. Sophomore Lindsay Ganahil was hoping to enter Modern Perspectives as well, but was a lower priority because she did not have a roommate already in the program.

"I just wanted to live with my friends," said Ganahil. "It's so frustrating to have to walk outside to see them, rather than just down the hall." She, like others who didn't get rooms in Dunne, opted to move into Swig so she could be near her friends.

"Every year there are problems. You just can't please everyone, 100 percent of the time," said Franke.