UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 22,1993
7
"there's no place like home"
Continued from Page 1.
Today, the number of residents living in the halls is down 1,200, or 26.3 percent, from 1987.
One casualty of the decline was Joseph R. Pearson Hall, which closed its doors to residents after Spring 1992. The department of student housing is now providing the building as office space to the School of Education and will turn it over entirely to the school on July 1, 1994.
However, KU is not the only university to experience a drop in the number of students living on campus.
At nearly all state universities across the nation, the number of residents living in university-owned housing complexes declined in the past 10 years, said Gary Schwarzmuelzer, executive director of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International in Columbus, Ohio.
KU was, in fact, fortunate, Schwarzmeller said. The decreases were much more severe and sudden at other universities.
The University of Missouri in Columbia, whose 22 residence halls were full in 1987, now leases two residence halls to the university's hospital operations and uses a third for general office space. A fourth hall sits empty, Fisher said.
"The decline is happening nationwide," Schwarzmueller said. "It's not something that a university should feel like is just happening to them."
The reasons for the national decline are many.
At KU, one of the contributing factors is that freshman enrollment is down about 12 percent from the late 1980s.
Residence halls' occupancy numbers are sensitive to any fluctuations in freshman enrollment because that class makes up about 65 percent of the residents each year, he said.
Ironically, a drop in the number of freshmen in 1988 helped alleviate the tight squeeze of residents in the halls. Stories that appeared that year in the Kansan and Kansas City Star reported that fewer out-of-state freshmen would mean no student housing crunch at KU.
But since 1987, freshman enrollment at KU has declined 1,268, or 18.2 percent, according to University enrollment statistics.
However, freshman enrollment this year increased by 72 students, the first increase since 1987. Residence halls occupancy numbers also increased for the first time since 1987, by 16 residents, according to student housing statistics.
10
Reasons for flight
When Carrie Katz, Wilmette, Ill., senior, came to KU in 1989 as a freshman, she moved into Ellsworth Hall.
"I had some of the best times of my life there," she said. "I met my best friend there. The social arrangement just seemed to be right for me. And everything was so convenient."
But after her sophomore year, Katz decided to live in an apartment.
"It was just time to move on," she said.
Not all students, however, move out of the residence halls after their first or second year. Some enjoy the conveniences and social atmosphere enough to stay.
Jason Smith, Wichita senior, has lived in residence halls since he came to KU in 1989. He lived in JRP his first year and has lived in Templin Hall ever since.
He said he liked the convenience of the halls.
"I don't like to cook, and I prefer not to clean a bathroom," Smith said. "And I really don't
mind the social atmosphere here, either.
"I think it's entertaining to see how naive freshmen can be," he said.
But the high number of freshmen and sophomores is one reason that most upperclassmen leave after one or two years in the halls.
For Chris Johnson, Chicago senior, the move out of Oliver Hall and into an off-campus apartment this year was much needed.
"I felt I didn't have enough privacy in the hall; it was no soisy," he said. "Here we've got my own room, access to food at night and space for the four televisions that we hooked up."
But another important reason residence hall occupancy rates have dropped at KU — and why registration must have soon. Soon said
— is that college students' expectations of housing have changed nationwide.
In the 1950s and '60s, when most of KU's residence halls were built, college students often came from large families where they shared everything from bathrooms and bedrooms to radios and records.
Anymore, it is not uncommon for a student to arrive at college with a U-Haul.
"My brother and I got in our '61 Chevy, and we put everything we had in the car," Stoner said. "I could still see out all the windows, and we drove off to college—and we were both in the same car."
Stoner said it was easy figuring out that students' housing needs were changing. But the idea of renovating and modernizing the halls to meet those needs proved to be a "tough sell" in the mid-1980s
"It was easy to think that, 'Since our halls are full, we must be doing everything right,' " Stoner said. "In reality, some students were continuing to live in the halls, not necessarily because we had a better product, but because we had that corner of the market. We were insisting on an old product."
And in a short period of time, with an increase in new apartment complexes, residence halls lost that corner of the market. Students simply had too many other places — new and sometimes furnished places — from which to choose. Stoner said.
"It's kind of like when Henry Ford said, 'They can have any color of car they want, as long as it is black.' Over time, if people wanted other colors and he didn't give it to them, people would go someplace else." Stoner said. "That's similar to our situation. We didn't diversify and modernize the facilities while the apartment increases were happening."
Today, college students come from smaller families, where they likely had their own bedroom, television and stereo.
By renovating the halls and turning rooms into apartment-style suites, KU hopes to attract more of the student housing market back to campus, he said.
Migration to the neighborhoods
From 1980 to 1990, all residential tracts, or areas, in Lawrence that are close to KU's campus increased in student population. The number of students living north and west of campus has increased 26 percent. The Oread neighborhood, immediately east of campus and traditionally an area heavily populated by students, has increased 15 percent.
The number of students living off campus has grown, according to U.S. Census statistics.
Freshman enrollment vs. hall occupancy
New apartment complexes have housed many of those students.
According to the Lawrence building inspector's office, 2,317 apartment units were built
Freshman enrollment affects residence hall occupancy because almost 65 percent of enrolled freshmen live in University halls.
Source: University Enrollment Statistics and Department of Student Housing.
in Lawrence from January 1983 to September 1993.
In Manhattan, 1,017 apartment units were built in that same period, according to the Manhattan city planning office.
But now there may be too much of a good thing in Lawrence, said Doug Compton, Lawrence city commissioner and owner of First Management, a local apartment leasing company.
"At some point, developers and building contractors should sit back and take a breath," Compton said. "Let's see if supply does still equal demand in Lawrence, Kan."
Micah Laaker/KANSAN
That same equation also worries housing officials in other college towns.
"We had a tremendous amount, a proliferation, of off-campus housing options pop up here in Manhattan in the last five years," said Chuck Werring, director of housing and dining services at Kansas State University. "Our declines in housing occupancy are a reality, and I've got to think some of that is related to this increase in apartment complexes."
This old hall
The halls are getting old.
Any building that is more than 30 years old and has housed up to 500 students each year is going to need important repairs soon, said Schwarzmueller, national student housing association executive director.
"Things wear out," he said. "And for most of the buildings, the time is now to do something."
The oldest residence hall on KU's campus is Corbin Hall, built in 1923. But Gerttude Sellars Pearson Hall and Carruth O'Leary Hall, now an administrative building, are the oldest of the post-World War II residence halls, which were built in 1955. Even Oliver Hall, the newest residence hall, is approaching 30 years of age.
Fisher, the director of residential life at the University of Missouri, said most residence halls there were just as old as those at KU.
"Some of our halls were renovated and redecorated literally before most of our students were born," Fisher said.
Missouri just completed a $6.5 million renovation of two of its residence halls, adding new wiring, heating systems, fire alarms and furniture.
The Missouri department of student housing is considering converting empty Hatch Hall into suites and apartments, Fisher said.
"Our goal is to have a total of 14 wings renovated in six residence halls by the fall of 1995," he said. Just one floor of each hall will be renovated, however.
Kansas State is going one step further. By the end of next week, K-State will have converted rooms in one wing of a residence hall into small apartments. The purpose of renovating just one wing of a hall is to create feedback and give the campus an idea about what the conversion of residence halls will look like, Werring said.
K-State has a total of 3,270 students living in 11 residence halls this year. The renovated rooms will eventually house about 500 residents, or about 15 percent of the hall population.
The goal at KU is to convert nearly all rooms in the eight residence halls into bedroom/bathroom suite. The renovation, if
Planning against blight
How Big Eight residence halls match up
Since 1985, KU and other Big Eight universities saw similar fluctuations in the number of students living in residence halls.
approved by the University, would begin in the summer of 1995 and would take about 10 years, Stoner said.
The plan is in its early stages, however. Stoner said that the department of student housing had not yet decided on a design but that it would most likely resemble a renovation at Western Carolina University in 1980.
In that design, large suites replaced the existing regular-size rooms. Most of the suites at KU, Stoner said, would be for four persons, with two bedrooms and one full bathroom. Some suites could be set up for two persons or six persons, but each suite would have its own separate bathroom.
Micah Leaker/KANSAN
That plan, Stoner said, is the most cost-effective one that could work using the existing hall structure. Housing renovations done at some universities included reconfiguring hallways and remodeling the exterior of the halls — both of which were much too expensive, Stoner said.
Stoner estimated that the cost of the proposed renovation would be $25 million. To pay for the renovation, hall residents who were living in remodeled suites would pay as much as 33 percent more in room and board each year, he said.
Living in a residence hall room with a room-
mate costs $3,280 this year — equivalent to
about $365 a month for nine months.
"Yes, the students will be paying more, but they'll probably be willing to pay more if they're getting what they want," Stoner said. Compton said students were "more than
willing" to pay for apartments or suites that were modern and close to campus.
Renting a two-bedroom apartment in Douglas County costs an average of $493 a month, including utilities, according to fair-market rent reports released by the federal government this year. If two people shared the rent, it would be $246.50 for each person. This total does not represent any food costs.
Students who live off campus almost always are required to sign 12-month leases, as opposed to students who sign a nine-month lease to live in the residence halls.
Stoner said the halls would be renovated one wing at a time in each residence hall.
If there is still a demand for the cheaper, nonrenovated rooms well before the renovation completion date, the department would not renovate the wings of some halls, he said.
But that decision, as well as most other decisions in the renovation process, ultimately will depend on students, Stoner said.
"We're driven by the consumer," he said. "All you have to do is watch the students. If you pay attention to what they're doing, you can pick up on the trends, and then you see more clearly where their needs lie."
Schwarzmueller, of the national student housing association, agreed.
"Any renovation today should focus on satisfying, to some extent, those expectations that students might have," he said. "If it doesn't, somebody else in town will satisfy them instead."
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