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Columns::August 6, 2001
Alternate routes
UGA reaccredited; SACS also praises undergrad initiative
Opening Convocation will feature student initiatives
New associate VP will direct Georgia Center
Nesbit named associate VP and budget director
Campus News
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| The university’s 17 residence halls, including Creswell, Russell, and Brumby, are filled to their 5,900-bed capacity. Administrators say the university is making plans to provide more residence space. Photo by Paul Efland |
Full house
Residence halls fill up, students placed in overflow space
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
With a higher demand from returning students for on-campus housing, and a larger than expected freshman class, UGA housing officials are placing more than 100 students in overflow spaces at the start of fall semester.
The university’s 17 residence halls are filled to their 5,900-bed capacity, and no new applications for on-campus housing are being accepted. Most transfer students and all new freshmen who applied for campus housing after May 30 have been advised to seek off-campus accommodations.
Scott Anderson, assistant director of housing, says temporary overflow housing for 123 students will be created in residence hall guest rooms and study lounges. The overflow rooms, which will house from two to six students, will have a telephone and a cable TV outlet and a bed, desk, chair and wardrobe-dresser for each student.
Students will be moved into regular residence hall rooms as they become available during the semester. Typically, overflow rooms are vacated by the last week in September, though that may not be the case this fall, Anderson says.
Students who didn’t get into either regular or overflow campus housing should have no trouble finding off-campus accommodations, Anderson says. “Fortunately, there is an ample supply of housing in the community for students in a wide variety of unit types, locations and prices,” he says.
For the past few years, the housing department has put only 30 to 40 students in overflow at the start of fall term. All of the available overflow space hasn’t been needed since 1995.
Anderson cites two main reasons for this year’s space crunch: an increase in the number of students returning to residence halls, and a larger freshman class than had been expected.
About 1,600 students who lived on campus last year applied for and received a residence hall assignment for this fall--about 100 more than in fall of 2000, Anderson says.
While final enrollment numbers will not be available until well after the start of classes, housing applications indicate some 3,900 freshmen will live in residence halls, including nearly 300 who started summer semester under the Freshman College program. Historically, about 85 percent of freshmen have lived on campus, Anderson says.
Anderson says all freshman men who applied for residence halls by May 7 were guaranteed a space, with only a few assigned to overflow. All freshman women who applied before May 7 received a guaranteed space, and those who applied between May 8 and May 21 received either a permanent or overflow assignment.
About 200 freshmen who applied after May 30 were advised to seek off-campus housing. Additionally, Anderson says, only about 110 new transfer students received a residence hall assignment.
Space in family housing and graduate student housing is also tight, especially for single graduate students seeking one-bedroom apartments, Anderson says. Only single graduate students who applied more than six months ago were able to get an on-campus apartment. Availability is a little better for student families seeking one- or two-bedroom units.
Although this is the tightest on-campus housing situation in several years, it is not as bad as in the mid-1980s, when fall quarters began with 375-500 students in overflow housing, Anderson says. In some years, as many as 1,100 students were on residence hall waiting lists, and the problem was worsened by a severe lack of off-campus housing.
Richard Mullendore, vice president for students affairs, says UGA is making plans to provide more residence hall space.
“It’s important that we house as many new and returning students on campus as we can,” Mullendore says. “Students who live on campus make better grades, are more involved in campus activities and have a greater opportunity to blend the in-class with the out-of-class experience. It’s our intention to build more on-campus housing as soon as we can.”
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