Triples, Doubles, and Kitchenettes

By Kurt Wagner

Matt Kelley is proving that the kitchen is no longer just a place to cook. At Santa Clara, it is also now a place to live.

Kelley, a sophomore in Campisi Hall, is living in the building's second floor kitchenette, a single room equipped with standard Santa Clara furniture, but also a built in microwave, oven and stove top. The unique living space was offered to some students this fall to accommodate an increasing number of students wishing to live on campus, said Maggie Malagon, the Housing Business Services Director.

As of Welcome Weekend, Santa Clara had 2,645 students signed up for on-campus housing, nearly 300 more students than last year, said Malagon. This increase forced housing services to search for additional temporary living spaces to accommodate all students, meaning kitchenettes in Campisi and Sanfilippo and lounges in Swig have all been converted into dorm rooms for students.

Kelley, known by many in Campisi as "The Kitchen Kid," plans to embrace the situation. "I knew some of my friends were going to want to use a kitchen, so I'm like, ‘I might as well take one for the team,'" said Kelley, who lived on "Man Hall" in Campisi last year. "I'm in control of the kitchen now."

The university knew on-campus housing would be an issue this fall after Graham (four buildings totaling 250 rooms) was demolished with only Nobili Hall (119 rooms) added to pick up the slack. With a larger than anticipated freshman class, more sophomores than usual electing to live on-campus, and the number of commuter students down, the overflow in housing was the result of "a perfect storm," said Malagon.

"We're looking at all of this as a temporary situation," she said. "We would like to get all of the students into traditional spaces and to get that space (kitchenette, lounge) back to the community."

While there is no timetable currently set for when students will be moved back into traditional housing, Swig has received the greatest impact of the housing overload this year.

The two lounges on all of Swig's even numbered floors have been converted into rooms – meaning an extra four students per floor, said Cyphi Resident Director Galina Pappu. And although this extra crowding may force many students to utilize additional common areas like Swig's sky lounge or basement rooms, Pappu sees the overload in Cyphi as a positive for the community.

"So many people want to be here and I think that's the really encouraging thing," she said. "Cyphi is the place to be. We really specialize in the freshman experience and I think students said ‘if temporarily we don't have a sink, that's not a big deal.'"

The converted lounges were actually dorm rooms themselves at one time, meaning spatially they coincide well with the other rooms in the building. However, because the rooms lack sinks, students were given a $200 credit to their Flex account as an accommodation, said Malagon.

This is not the first time that Santa Clara has seen overflow from on-campus housing. In years past, students have often been asked to live in triples, a situation that housing services avoided this time around due to the tight quarters that come with having three students in one room. The University Villas – previously referred to as the Campbell Townhouses – do have extra rooms available, but are reserved for juniors and seniors only. They are expected to fill up once many juniors return from abroad this winter, said Malagon. Kitchenettes have also been used as living quarters as recently as 2010 when H1N1 breakouts required ill students to live in confinement until fully recovered.

The university began checking with residence halls this week to ensure that all students expected to check in arrived. In the event of a no-show student, Santa Clara will verify the student's decision not to live on campus before giving away their room, said Malagon.

Contact Kurt Wagner at jwagner@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.