Students move back in dorms as residence halls become less packed
It has been more than two weeks since the start of the semester and the problem of residence hall overbooking is starting to get resolved.
Rebecca Wickham, associate director of university housing, said they are down to nine students at the Homestead Studio Suites Hotel plus two resident assistants.
The housing department placed 31 students at the off-campus hotel following campus dormitory overcrowding.
OU has a capacity of 2,100 beds for students wishing to live on campus.
According to Jim Zentmeyer, university housing director, overbooking is normal because a certain amount of students decide they no longer wish to live on campus.
This marks the second consecutive year the housing department has had to utilize Homestead Studio Suites, which is located on University Drive in Auburn Hills in order to accommodate residency requests.
A proposed new residence hall would add approximately 450 beds and could help alleviate the problem, but Vice President of Student Congress and former Residence Halls Association President Robbie Williford said this is still a ways off.
“We’re just meeting to go over the proposal with Jim Zentmeyer … what we did before we were stopped in our tracks,” Williford said.
Williford said before they were stopped last spring, they had received between 12 and 15 proposals from firms to complete work on the new residence hall.
“The new Board of Trustees chair (Michael) Kramer is all for housing,” he said.
Any proposal to build a new residence hall must go before the Board of Trustees. Williford expects housing to be on the agenda at the next Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 4.
Sept. 18 was the last day the housing department expected any major shifts from off-campus to on-campus residence because students can no longer drop classes for a full refund. However, Wickham said she is still working on placing students as quickly as possible.
According to Wickham, both the George T. Matthews Apartments and Hamlin Hall are being utilized as triple rooms with three students in them. The rooms were designed for this purpose.
