Thursday, April 2, 2009
{The Blue Banner}
Page 5
R.A.s lose rooms, benefits due to housing shortages By David Milton Staff Writer
D
demilton@unca.edu
ue to a housing shortage, UNC Asheville will not offer double rooms as single rooms to resident assistants next year, a benefit associated with the position for the past
two years. “For the past two years, we have consistently not had enough beds on campus to meet the demand,” said Vollie Barnwell, director of housing operations. “We are trying to figure out ways to create more beds for students to live in.” UNCA’s residence halls contain 1,146 spaces, or beds, for oncampus students. With the R.A.s losing their single rooms, the university gains 39 beds, Barnwell said. However, that number remains shy of the freshmen and sophomore population at UNCA. If all freshmen and sophomores wanted to live on campus next year, that would not be possible, Barnwell said. “Policy requires freshmen to live on campus, which I think is good,” Barnwell said. “For the most part we end up with about 600 freshmen on campus, and that is 600 of the 1,146 beds on campus.” For current students, the week of March 23 to March 27 was room sign-up week. By March 27, nearly Sulkiro Song - Staff Photographer 600 students signed up Sadie Ferguson, a R.A. in South Ridge, does homefor rooms and the houswork while enjoying time in a single room. Next year ing office wait-listed the rest of those who were the R.A.s will not be offered that perk due to housing signing up, Barnwell shortages. said. “We have more students who want to live on campus than beds, and that’s a great problem to have,” Barnwell said. “That shows that everyone at the university is doing a good job making students want to live on campus.” For the past two years, R.A.s had free single rooms at UNCA, with temporary roommates at the beginning of the academic year, Barnwell said. UNC Wilmington offers a similar program to their R.A.s, according to the UNCW Housing and Resident Life Office. “Two years ago we looked at what other schools were doing and what we thought would be best for our students, and at the time the decision was made that R.A.s wouldn’t have roommates,” Barnwell said. “In the past two years, R.A.s had roommates at the start of the year, because we had to use their spaces for temporary spaces.” The Office of Housing Operations employed several other
strategies to create temporary spaces, and some led to permanent spaces. “One thing that we did do, in addition to the R.A.s getting roommates again, is that in Governors Hall we converted some very large double rooms into triples,” Barnwell said. “We used them as triples this year on a temporary basis, but the students living there wanted to stay there. So we put some extra closets in and made them triples.” Although R.A.s will not have free single rooms, they will receive greater compensation and a discount on their housing bill, according to the Office of Residential Education. “I use my single room to have one-on-one talks with students,” said Lara Martini, 21, R.A. in West Ridge. “But I don’t think not having single rooms will hurt the program. R.A.s shouldn’t want the job for the single room.” Martini, in her third year as a R.A., suggests the job for interested students, especially in rough economic times, she said. So do other R.A.s. “It is a great job, not only to have while you’re in school, but to have on your résumé when you get out of school,” said Stan Setzer, 23, a R.A. in South Ridge. The housing shortage is not the only reason the university needs to free up the 39 beds, Barnwell said. More students on campus means more revenue for the university. “It increases revenue when you put more people on campus,” Barnwell said. “So there is a financial reason for doing it.” The strategic plan set forth by the university calls for a greater percentage of students to live on campus, Barnwell said. Eventually, more housing will be necessary. “It would be better if we could go out there and build a 200-room or 300-room residence hall,” Barnwell said. “But I can’t do that before next August.” There is a work group beginning plans for future housing accommodations, but there are problems with building a new residence hall, Barnwell said. “Our campus doesn’t have 30 acres somewhere to start building on,” Barnwell said. “You don’t want to build a residence hall on the Quad.” Governor’s Village, the oldest on-campus housing, houses 103 beds but is reaching the end of its life span, Barnwell said. Governor’s Village is one of the locations in consideration for a new residence hall. “A couple of sites that have been talked about are where Governor’s Village is now, and the old physical plant site past Governor’s Hall going down toward Mills,” Barnwell said. “But with the Village site, what do you do with the students living there now?” There is also a financial dilemma attached to any new residence hall. UNCA is still paying off other buildings, and new buildings are expensive, Barnwell said. In addition, housing operations do not receive state funds at all, and excess from student housing payments help fund other university programs and projects, according to Barnwell. “In tough economic times, a residence hall like that is $20 million plus,” Barnwell said. “We don’t have $20 million laying around.”