By Sumit De
With sophomores no longer allowed to live off campus, 11 students scheduled to transfer in, and a larger-than-expected number of students opting to stay on campus next year, renovations and reconfigurations this summer will begin just in time for Morse College. Despite the efforts to increase space, however, some Morsels fear the possibility of cramped housing for the first time in recent years.
This year, 210 Morse students chose to live on campus, 108 chose to live off campus, and three chose to live in the annex. While the final tally isn't in, Master Stanton Wheeler predicted the number of students living on campus next year would be close to the 251 spots open for housing. Bringing the college to its carrying capacity, the increase in students may effect the number of singles available to upperclassmen, which has traditionally been an added feature of both Morse and Stiles colleges.
Bobby Griggs, MC '97, said, "This year in the Morse tower we were able to have six people in a seven-room suite. Next year we can only have groups of seven apply for a floor in the tower."
Some Morse students believe that forcing all of the class of 1999 to live in Morse will create additional pressure on the college. "I transferred out of Calhoun because it was really cramped. I liked the arrangement this year. I think forcing students to stay on campus is going to make it cramped, but it doesn't have to be that way," Kim Daniel, MC '97, said.
Morse will offer students new facilities, including a new kitchen, a multi-purpose room, a darkroom, a music module, and the expansion of existing rooms and facilities. As for student housing, six suites and rooms are being reconfigured on the entryway A-D side of Morse, which has caused much controversy within the college.
Although renovations will increase space, the maximum number of students the college will be able to hold will remain the same. The number of common rooms within the college will increase by transforming some rooms into doubles with a new central common room. For instance, one design option changes seven current singles into one double, two singles, and a common room, with the option of joining the three remaining singles to that suite.
"The number of bedrooms won't really change, it's just we're getting more common rooms," Housing Chair Nilesh Kalyanaraman, MC '97, said. "They'll be different rooms, but not a lot is changing."
In its 34-year existence, Morse has never undergone any major renovations as extensive as the ones slated for this summer. "They're going to effect Morse in a very positive way. Not only will the students' social and recreational lives be enriched, but the students will also have more options open to them during the housing draw," Wheeler said.
In addition to the renovations occurring on campus, the two Morse annexes near the Payne Whitney Gymnasium will also be refurbished during June and July. This year, only three students used the annexes, leading some to erroneously believe there were serious problems with the annex housing.
"The annex may have been subpar to some of the other options the University had to offer, but there wasn't anything really wrong with it," Kalyanaraman said.
"Both annexes are being brought up to the same standard as the college itself. They were single family homes before they were made part of Morse, so they are quite livable," Dean Glenn Wallach said.
Explaining the increase in the number of Morse students next year, Kalyanaraman said, "The juniors have a lot of Morse spirit so I'm not totally surprised." Aside from the newly reconfigured rooms, Kalyanaraman predicted that next year students will not have the currently available option of converting empty rooms into common rooms.
Renovations are scheduled to begin on May 28, the day after commencement. They may begin earlier in sophomore and junior residential areas since these students will be leaving two weeks before commencement.
Coleman Long contributed to this article.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article may be freely distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice, but may not be reprinted without the express written permission of The Yale Herald, Inc. Write to herald@yale.edu for additional details.