When there's no home away from home

KAREN ROSENBERG/YH

Vent your opinions and see what others have to say about the situation in our campus housing forum.

After much debate, the Council decided to annex the majority of Berkeley students, Class of 2002 in Durfee Hall on Old Campus. This decision triggered a domino effect that, over the next few weeks, would affect students from over half the colleges: Berkeley sophomores in Durfee, Morse freshmen out. Morse freshmen in Welch, Branford freshmen out. Berkeley and Branford freshmen in Vanderbilt, Calhoun freshmen out. More Branford freshmen in McClellan, Jonathan Edwards and Trumbull annexed students out.

The resulting commotion infuriated the many students who were forced to change their living arrangements at the last minute. This week, controversy abated somewhat as more students decided to live off campus for fear of not getting choice housing in their colleges. But this relative calm is only temporary, as this spring's chaos points to an undeniable reality: the University has outgrown its available housing. Was this a predicament that the Administration could have anticipated and prepared for? And what will Yale do in future years when further renovations attract even more upperclassmen back to campus?

Population explosion

Room in the Ivy Tower? As each residential college is renovated an in turn attracts students back to campus, will Yale be able to find room for those who wish to return? Below are the number of students in each college who live off campus as of February 1999. Berkeley 62* Branford 69* Calhoun 94 Davenport 89 Ezra Stiles 76 Jonathan Edwards 58 Morse 65 Pierson 61 Saybrook 76* Silliman 55 Timothy Dwight 50 Trumbull 64 Total 819 *Colleges being renovated in the next three years.

The housing changes themselves are not as surprising as the fact that they were made just one month before room draw. Yale administrators had not taken any measures to prepare for a potential increase in on-campus residents. Berkeley Dean Laurence Winnie said he realized the renovations would draw some Berkeley students back to campus but "didn't foresee that there would have been such a pent-up desire to live in the college." This pent-up desire was substantial: 75 percent of Berkeley juniors will live in the college next year, as compared to only 60 percent in 1997-98.

Because the decision to annex Berkeley sophomores in Durfee was so last-minute, it caught students, masters, and deans in other colleges off-guard. In JE, rising juniors didn't find out that their annex would be Durfee instead of McClellan until Wed., Mar. 24--less than two weeks before their room draw. This late notification incovenienced many students, who had already configured themselves according to McClellan's dimensions. "It's not a problem that Yale moved us from McClellan to Durfee," John Schochet, JE '01, who
had set his sights on the McClellan Octet, said. "What annoyed us was the fact that they didn't tell us about it until after spring break."

Many students thought the housing shuffle could have been averted. "When you renovate a college so that it goes from being the worst one to live in to by far the nicest one, it's obvious that more people are going to want to live in it. It shouldn't have been that difficult for the Administration to figure out," Schochet said. "[Yale] knew about this problem in January when everyone turned in their schedules and said their living arrangements, and they didn't do anything about it until right before spring break," Seth Brown, BR '00, said. Shira Saiger, BK '02, suggested that the Administration should have taken a poll of Berkeley rising juniors and seniors to get an idea of how many planned to live in the college.

University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, admitted at a recent Yale College Council meeting that the Administration had missed the mark in its initial appraisal of housing issues. "I think we should have anticipated this," he said. "We deluded ourselves because there has already been a reduction in the number of students living off campus, so we didn't think the renovations would cause such a further reduction."

But Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg wasn't as sure that the problem could have been foreseen. "People have said to me, `Couldn't you have anticipated this?' but you really never know. Hindsight is always much better," she said. And according to Dean of Administrative Affairs John Meeske, the end result would probably have been the same. "Even if we had anticipated [the problem] a year ago, what would we have done? I don't think we would have done anything differently," he said.

A world away

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But the Administration's admissions of poor judgment aren't enough to console Berkeley rising sophomores, most of whom won't get to live in their residential college next year. "We've been separated from our college for a year already. Because we had no dining hall, there was no way for us to meet upperclassmen," Saiger said, adding that many students in her class have expressed their disappointment and frustration to Dean Winnie. "[Being annexed] is going to put us behind in having a relationship with other people in the college, which is what the residential college system is all about," Erica Hickey, BK '02, added.

This last statement echoes what Yale College claims is an integral and unique part of its ideology: the importance of the residential college system. Julie Stoltey, MC '00, head tour guide at the Visitor's Center, said that she tries to emphasize the residential college system when talking to prospective freshmen. "I tell them that the residential college system provides a base within the larger community, that it offers the best of both worlds," she said. The Yale brochure sent to prospective freshmen articulates this philosophy clearly: "By offering a community of students, the colleges create the intimacy of a small school," it states. "Students come to know each other quickly as colleagues and as friends."

Currently annexed students agree that not living in their colleges has detracted from their residential life experience. "When you're annexed, everyone in the college forgets about you. You have to make a concerted effort to keep in touch with the people in your college," said Adrien Ruvalcaba, MC '00, who lives in Durfee this year. In Timothy Dwight, nearly all juniors get annexed in Rosenfeld Hall (above the language lab) or at 370 Temple St. Justin Florence, TD '00, was somewhat more positive about his annex experience. "There's an annex community here,which develops class bonding," he said. "But there will be days when I don't even go into the college, and it's hard to meet underclassmen in TD."

How does the Administration reconcile the emphasis it puts on the residential college system with the fact that students are being denied the opportunity to take advantage of it? According to Meeske, the Administration did everything it could to reconcile ideology and reality. It was for this reason, he said, that Yale College decided to annex the Berkeley sophomores instead of the juniors. He pointed out that it would have eased the overcrowding more significantly if juniors were annexed, because some of them would have moved off campus, which the sophomores didn't have the option to do. The reason Yale decided to annex sophomores instead was "because we do value the residential college system so much," he said.

Still, justifying the decision to Berkeley freshmen has been difficult for administrators. Trachtenberg said there was little she could say to comfort Berkeley freshmen who came to complain to her about being annexed next year. "I would never tell them that they are getting the best of all worlds," she said.

The aftershocks

At this point, no amount of protesting will change anything for the disappointed
students who were inconvenienced by the shuffle this year. But can anything be done
to forestall the same predicament in the future and keep the overcrowding problem from growing?

Branford will very likely face the same problem Berkeley did after its own renovations next year. The new Branford will hold 284 students, while the three upper classes total about 330. Even assuming some students move off campus or go abroad, this will likely only account for a small percentage of Branfordians, especially considering that the renovations make Branford more attractive. Consequently, a large number of Branford students--perhaps as many as 40--will be annexed. Don't forget about the excess Berkeley students who will probably be on Old Campus if the demand to live in Berkeley remains high. Move ahead one year and add the excess Saybrugians likely to be annexed after their college is renovated, and it's easy to imagine the snowball getting larger and harder to manage.

Levin said the impending housing crisis must be addressed with a long-term plan. "It's going to be a big problem," he said, a problem that can be solved in one of two ways: "We're going to have to create new housing or accept fewer freshmen."

Lucky 13?

Levin has acknowledged that something has to give. Judging from this year's admissions numbers, however, it seems the University has no immediate plans to accept fewer freshmen. While Brodhead denied the rumors that the incoming Class of 2003 will have 130 more students than the current freshman class, he acknowledged it that will be significantly bigger. The reason for the increase, he said, was that the Class of 1999 is unusually large, at 1,375 students--therefore an equally large incoming freshman class was needed to replace it. Yale College aims for a total enrollment of 5,225, which is "largely a budgetary decision," Meeske said. he explained that, according to Yale's original plan, the Class of 2003 should have had 1,387 students. Upon realizing that this number would be impossible to accommodate, he and Brodhead met with Provost Alison Richard and convinced her to lower this number to 1,369--a decrease which appears small, but is actually financially significant, according to Meeske. But even with this decrease, housing all the freshmen on Old Campus will still be a challenge.

Administrators claim that despite the fluctuations is class size, admissions policy will aim to stabilize the number of freshmen admitted each year. "We need to get away from the pattern we've found recently of having large freshman classes in some years and small freshman classes in others," Meeske said. Trachtenberg said the goal would be to stabilize the size of the freshman class at
a number that would hold regardless of the size of the graduating class.

But with 11 more years of renovations on the horizon, it remains to be seen whether this stabilization will be enough to alleviate the self-perpetuating housing shortage. If it is not, the University will have to consider building additional housing. Yale may decide to build a 13th or even a 14th residential college. "We haven't taken it as a formal decision," Levin said, adding that building new colleges wouldn't be considered until the next decade. Brodhead labelled the idea of new colleges as "interesting, hypothetical, and a long shot. We can't plan an eternal solution to a constantly changing problem." Trachtenberg added that change was still a long way off. "Your children will live in the new colleges," she said.

But Kemel Dawkins, associate vice president of facilities, acknowledged that while building new colleges has been discussed in general terms for years, the recent housing crunch is a new and significant consideration. "It's a new issue and institutionally we've recognized it," he said. He reported that discussions have taken place addressing the idea of new residential colleges, but he would not comment on who was involved in these discussions or the specific issues that were raised.

Whether or not Yale decides to build new colleges somewhere down the road, clearly something must be done to address the housing problem more immediately. Many students are concerned that if the events of this year are any indication, they will not have any input into the decisions Yale makes. According to Saiger, many Berkeley freshmen were upset that they had little say in their fate. "No one had even asked us how we felt about it," she said.

This spring, Yale administrators haven't had the time
to consider student input--they've just struggled to keep their heads above water. "They're jumping from crisis to crisis," Brown said. "They need to sit down and figure out what to do. I can't imagine a more important decision they
could make."

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