College predicts housing shortage

Author: Katie Flagg

With the much-anticipated April room draw rapidly approaching, students planning to live on campus next year are busy scrutinizing floor plans, knocking on strangers' doors and debating living arrangements among friends. An already stressful process, however, could potentially become more nerve-racking. According to Dean of the College Tim Spears, Middlebury College is predicting bed shortages and housing crunches for the upcoming academic year.

"We're projecting we're going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of anywhere between 50 and 55 beds short in the fall," said Spears.

According to Director of Off-Campus Study and Professor of the College David Macey, that number may be even higher. "The projected bed shortage is calculated on the basis of an estimated first-year class that is already below the planned figure of 565 to 570," said Macey. "So the real shortage is actually larger than the current projection."

A predicted 2,386 students will be enrolled next year, says Residential Systems Coordinator Kelly Bevere, not counting special students or off-campus residents. While the College currently has 2,344 beds on campus, that number will drop to 2,329 next year, resulting in the "50-odd bed" shortage, in Spears's words.

One reason for the drop in capacity next year is the removal of several senior houses from the College's dormitory system. The Blinn Lane House, currently part of Brainerd Commons, will be renovated and converted into a faculty head residence for Ross Commons. The Homer Harris farmhouse is also being taken off-line because of its dilapidated condition.

Further exacerbating the housing shortage are fluctuations in the number of students studying abroad. This year, 60.5 percent of the junior class studied abroad - next year's estimates predict that the number of juniors abroad will fall between 55 and 56 percent. While this year's numbers indicated an unusual spike in study abroad participants, the drop in next year's numbers will result in more students on campus - and more filled beds.

The College's Feb program also plays into the housing and study abroad debate.

"We have a Feb class," said Spears, "that comes in and, historically speaking, they take the place of students who have gone abroad. Over the past few years, though, we've had pretty much the same number of students go abroad in the spring as in the fall, so it's kind of a wash there."

Because the College "can't say for sure exactly how many students are going to go abroad" at this point in time, Spears emphasizes that these numbers are subject to change.

And as Macey points out, the study abroad numbers alone cannot account for the projected housing shortage.

"Even if 60 percent of the junior class were to go abroad, the difference between what we are projecting and the percentage who went away this year only accounts for slightly less than half of the bed shortage," said Macey.

Another reason for the shortage, says Spears, is the fluctuation in enrollment numbers between classes. "What we've been trying to do over the past few years is rectify what's called the 'whip-saw effect.' We've been trying to stabilize our enrollment numbers," he said. "It's trickier stabilizing these numbers than it might seem."

How does the College plan to address these predicted housing shortages?

In past years, Spears said, off campus numbers have acted as a "kind of safety valve" to control overcrowding on campus. According to the College handbook, 65 students are allowed to live off campus in the greater Middlebury area each year. "That number has floated as high as 120 in the last five or six years," says Spears, "and so we've been really determined to keep the number down."

While the College remains committed to keeping off campus numbers low, this year that safety valve will relieve some of the pressure to generate more on campus beds.

"Our goal for next year is probably to allow somewhere in the order of 73 or 74 students to live off campus," said Spears. "Basically we've decided to let everyone who applied to live off-campus to live off-campus."

Other plans to rectify the housing shortage include converting lounges into student housing and pulling faculty rental properties into the student housing pool. The College can gain between 35 and 40 beds from lounges, though the administration acknowledges the dangers of trading communal space for housing.

"It's definitely a disadvantage for students to have to live on a hallway where lounges that are supposed to be there for communal space are being occupied by residents," said Spears. "That's not something that we like to have happen."

Spears noted that the lounges, aside from providing social space, are often in place for emergency purposes, providing flexibility in the housing system.

"There are good reasons to have a little bit of flex within the system so that we can move students from one room to another," he said. "If we're filled to the gills we lose flexibility."

Bevere does not yet know if converted lounges will be included in the upcoming room draw.

Despite the obvious downsides that accompany lounge conversions, the plans to increase capacity may have positive benefits for some students.

"The use of some faculty rentals will be a welcomed addition by seniors," said Bevere. "We used some of these faculty houses a few years ago and the seniors loved the spaces. They were still on campus, but had a smaller space to themselves."

Spears was less enthused about the inclusion of faculty rental properties in the student housing pool. The situation a few years ago was "dicey," he said, when students occupied rental properties near faculty members and their families.

"It didn't work out that well," he admitted. But, said Spears, "This time around we've got a little bit more in the housing stock and there are more properties available and we're going to use that housing stock very selectively and choose rentals that are a little off the beaten track and are not, perhaps, the most desirable properties within the faculty housing stock."

Other complications remain, though. Bevere was unable to confirm whether the housing shortage will affect the commons system. When asked if students interested in continuing in their commons would be able to do so, in spite of the bed shortages, she could not "predict one way or the other."

"I can tell you that at last year's room draw, an overwhelming majority of students who wanted to continue [in their commons] were able to," she said. "I would anticipate the same this year."

Both Bevere and Spears, however, stressed that the projected shortages should not be cause for alarm yet.

"There will be beds available on campus," said Spears. "It's too soon to be really alarmist about these enrollment numbers. We've confronted similarly tight situations in years past and we've managed to solve the problem, so to speak."

Furthermore, Spears noted that the "similarly tight situations" seemed, in the past, to have no ill effect on students' residential experiences on campus.

Bevere was similarly hopeful.

"I don't think students should feel anxious about the bed shortage," she said. "Students are guaranteed on campus housing and we'll find the space. Inevitably, students will get worked up about room draw, but I don't think the expected room shortage should add to that anxiety."