About 25 returning sophomores and all sophomore transfer students are living on the York Hill campus due to the large number of freshmen and sophomores on campus, according to Associate Director of Residential Life Melissa Karipidis.
The sophomores must live in Crescent at York Hill because they were not assigned housing last April or were meant to live in the Complex 80s, Karipidis said. Instead, freshmen are living in the Complex 80s this year.
Residence Hall Irma has two study rooms that were converted into dorm rooms, Karipidis said. The students living there will be moved to different housing once space becomes available, according to Karipidis.
When freshman Ryan Flagg found out he would be living with two other students in a converted study room, he was initially skeptical, but now likes living there.
“Living in the lounge is really nice,” he said. “They set it up just like a triple would be in a normal room so to me there isn’t really a whole lot of a difference. I’ve met a lot of people who just wanted to check it out and for that I think it’s really cool. The only problem I have with it is that I don’t know exactly how long I’ll be here for. But even that is minor. The room is also lot bigger than I thought it would be.”
Flagg’s roommate Michael Tullo is happy with how Residential Life handled their unusual situation.
“[Residential Life] told us way before in advanced and the move-in process was easy,” Tullo said. “Honestly, if I had a choice I would stay in this room, I couldn’t count the amount of times people have knocked on the door to take a picture of this room knowing they studied here last year.”
Sophomore Alejandro Polanco was not placed in housing in April and did not learn where he was going to live until Aug. 1, when he received a phone call from Residence Hall Director Michael Guthrie informing him that he would be living on York Hill.
“I am actually pretty excited to be up on York Hill for a few reasons,” Polanco said. “I already have a solid friend base in terms of the sophomores living on the main campus and [what] living on York Hill is going to allow me to do is separate my fun from my school work. At least while I’m up on York Hill I can really focus on getting my work done and stuff like that. While if I want to have fun or hang out with friends, I can just head down to main campus.”
Thirty members of the Class of 2016 were not placed in housing at the end of last semester, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Cindy Long Porter told The Chronicle in an interview in April. In April, Porter said sophomores would not be living on York Hill but students would be placed with their class.
In late July, Residential Life chose to move sophomores to York Hill to accommodate the sophomores and freshmen who did not have housing, Karipidis said.
These changes to on-campus housing came after Residential Life announced in March that sophomores would be living in the suites and freshmen would be living in Mountainview.
Some students were upset with this decision, but Polanco believes Residential Life did the best it could with the situation.
“I know a lot of people are frustrated that they are living in the same building two years in a row, but with the expansion of the school and with each incoming freshman class larger than the last, there is only so much the school can do about it,” Polanco said.
According to Karipidis, Residential Life does not plan to make any more housing changes for this academic year.
“We have residency projections for the upcoming years,” she said. “Specific building designations for next year will be determined in the coming months.”
