54 rooms have five-person occupancy at start of semester, space on campus for all to be in four person rooms
Residence hall rooms will continue to be a bit less crowded this semester with many residents having the option to move from five-student to four-student rooms.
There were about 300 students, not including staff, living in expanded occupancy rooms at the beginning of the school year. By the start of spring semester, there were 54 expanded occupancy rooms, said Associate Residence Life Director Shaun Holtgreive. Some of these rooms are five person rooms and some are four person staff rooms.
“We have enough space that those who choose to move will be able to,” he said. “It may not be the hall in which they currently live.”
There were 98 non-staff rooms with five people as of Oct. 17, said Holtgreive, about half of which had voluntarily chosen to remain at five person occupancy.
Michelle Lovegrove moved down two floors in Woldt Hall when a room emptied out the first week of September.
“My roommates were nice and everything, it was just a lot more crowded,” the Wyoming freshman said. “It’s really not that different from a normal room.”
Lovegrove said she would have been fine staying with her old roommates.
Many overfilled rooms thinned out as students left the university throughout the previous semester. Some reasons students leave are study abroad, student teaching, graduation, financial aid and academic problems, Holtgreive said.
Students who signed agreements to stay in five person rooms will be offered the chance to move out again, he said.
Calkins Hall has the most expanded occupancy rooms with eight, Holtgreive said. The other expanded occupancy rooms are scattered across campus.
“I was able ... to reduce five-person rooms to four-person rooms for all of the female rooms by early October — and I still had three rooms that chose to stay five-person rooms,” said Calkins Hall Residence Hall Director Cathy Warner. “Going in to January I have a handful of male rooms that are still five-person rooms. Throughout the fall, most seemed to get used to the arrangement and now seem hesitant to change now that options are coming open.”
Students who signed agreements to stay in five person rooms will be offered the chance to move out again, Holtgreive said.
All of the male resident assistant rooms still have one additional roommate, Warner said. She hopes to have everyone relocated to normal occupancy within the first three weeks of the semester.
Holtgreive said Residence Life will begin offering to move people into four person rooms this week.
