Room For One More?
Students share their experiences living on-campus as freshman class sizes grow.
Story by Cara Finnegan
Photos by Pearl Spurlock | Design by Julia Greenwood
Over the past year, Ohio University students have dealt with the aftermath of increased enrollment post-COVID-19. The Ohio University Common Data Set (CDS) showed a sharp uptick in students attending OU after COVID-19 restrictions eased in 2021. However, before the pandemic, OU’s enrollment was steadily decreasing.
OU then admitted a record number of students in 2021, with an overall acceptance rate of 88.6%. Nearly 22,000 students applied to OU in 2021, with 19,245 admitted to the Athens campus. Of those 19,245 students admitted, 3,364 students opted to attend OU for their first year of college. The following year, in 2022, first-year student enrollment at the Athens campus grew to 4,441 students, a 20% increase in first-year students. This year, the first-year class broke another record with 4,516 students.
Since 2016, there has been a 13.7% increase in the acceptance rate of students applying to OU’s main campus. The percentage of accepted students enrolled at OU has also been incredibly fluid. The percentage of students enrolled took a sharp 12% decrease from 2016 to 2020 but has since increased post-pandemic.
Overall, these numbers share a few things: OU is becoming a popular choice and a competitive campus compared to other public colleges in Ohio, perhaps due to its affordability or notorious party culture. While having more Bobcats on campus brings in more revenue for the university, how are all these students being housed, especially after the demolition of the beloved Scott Quad and 10 Back South dormitories?
Jneanne Hacker, executive director of housing and residence life, says in an email that “Housing and Residence Life has a great deal of experience programming halls to match occupancy needs, and our overall capacity was supported further through a master lease agreement with a local apartment complex through a competitive bid process.”
Hacker also says that there are 8,300 beds available to students for the 2023-2024 academic year. The newest housing option, available to some students, is the opportunity to live in the River Park Apartments near South Green.
The option for students to live in River Park Apartments is enticing, especially for students such as Nicholas Medvitz, a sophomore studying sports management. Medvitz was one of the second-year students who secured a room in River Park this fall semester. Students may be happy to be in apartment-style spaces because each resident not only has their own bedroom, but also access to a shared kitchen and living room.
“I think living in River Park is a great opportunity for sophomores because it helps them get ready for life after school and helps them for possibly living off-campus for their junior and senior year,” Medvitz says.
While many freshmen and sophomore students such as Medvitz are excited to live in River Park through OU’s contractual agreement with the apartment complex, other students remain in dorms.
October Reno, a sophomore studying creative writing, shares their perspective on living in on-campus housing last year. He lived in a triple alongside two friends in Perkins Hall on East Green. The space is listed on OU’s Floor Plan as a triple. Reno does not feel that the space was large enough to accommodate three people comfortably. Their room had built-in closets for two people, with some space to spare, but it came with an extra wardrobe, desk and bed to accommodate a third student.
Reno and his roommates struggled to place the wardrobe safely without blocking the heater or windows, so they placed it in the hallway for Housing and Residence Life to take away. Reno says that Housing and Residence Life did not take the wardrobe, and they ultimately placed it back in the room.
“Everyone is moved in, but we are struggling because of the lack of space that we have,” Reno says. “We ended up treating it like it was a cut-in of the wall. It was very difficult to live with three people.”
Kacy Vanscoy, a freshman studying early childhood education, also struggles with her room not accommodating university-issued furniture. When Vanscoy first entered the room, she was caught off-guard by the size of it.
“We were both almost in tears because of how small the room was, and we were worried that we weren’t even going to be able to function,” Vanscoy says.
Vanscoy’s room is 145.94 square feet, but the single directly across from her is 124.25 square feet, which is only 20 square feet smaller. Due to the space feeling so cramped, Vanscoy says that she often uses the amenities in Jefferson Hall, such as the study spaces, rather than being in her room.
After attempting to reorganize the dorm’s furniture during move-in with no success, Vanscoy asked the housing staff in Jefferson Hall to help continue moving stuff around. Vanscoy says the staff was helpful, but there was seemingly no feasible solution aside from lofting a bed, which, according to OU Housing and Residence Life’s Amenities page on their website, is not a permittable accommodation.
“I think the way we arranged the room was the best we possibly could for what we wanted.” Vanscoy says. As a result of the lack of space in the room, Vanscoy’s roommate had to buy a smaller fold-up desk from Amazon and placed the university-provided desk under her bed.
Emily Osborne, a sophomore studying psychology, lived in Ryors Hall in a triple last year. In this space, Osborne says all of her roommates struggled to coexist.
“Not even having your own little corner or space to yourself, having to constantly be on top of each other was overwhelming, in a sense, especially after a long day,” Osborne says.
Similar to Vanscoy, she struggled with feeling cramped in her own space and opted to spend time in the Ryors Hall lobby, or with friends in other halls, rather than in her own space.
These housing issues not only raise concerns for students, but also the resident assistants that help and advise students living on-campus.
Ben Dawson, a junior studying education and a former RA of Shively Hall, shares his concerns about the size, layout and occupancy of some dorm rooms at OU. In Dawson’s experience, he noticed that multi-occupancy spaces, such as triples and quads, had more “domestic conflicts” than other spaces in the Shively-Perkins Complex.
Dawson also feels that compensation for RAs, but especially for those who deal with multi-occupancy spaces, is not enough.
“RAs at OU are already not compensated particularly well, in my opinion,” Dawson says. Dawson also mentioned the allure of free housing but expressed disdain for the low weekly stipend that RAs receive, along with the lack of compensation for RA's meal plans.
For the 2022-2023 school year, Dawson says his stipend was $1603.00 per semester.
According to the RA Position Information page on OU’s website, RAs are expected to be “...a community builder, educator, conflict manager, equity and inclusion advocate, role model and team member” while also taking classes as a full-time student.
Increased enrollment does have positives, for example, “revenue from increased student enrollment provides an increased opportunity for the university to further invest in the student experience and student support, such as housing,” Hacker says in an email.
Dawson suggests that OU’s Housing and Residence Life expedite the construction of new dorms to accommodate more students. He also expresses his critique of current spending.
“It seems like their priorities are maybe misplaced,” Dawson says.
Despite whether the space was built to house two or three residents per room, students living in suite-style rooms at OU are charged the same price: $5,068 per semester. Individuals placed in a room built to house two residents but have an additional roommate are not compensated through a price reduction of any kind.
For students deciding between living in a standard double or a standard multi-occupancy space, the price difference between these spaces is $220 per semester. The price difference between a renovated double and a renovated multi-occupancy is $586 per semester.
Using Bromley Hall as a frame of reference for suite-style rooms, on the fifth floor of the dormitory, the average square footage for a double room, excluding RA rooms and including a closet, is roughly 224.68 square feet, allocating 112.34 square feet per resident. Room 501 in Bromley Hall is a suite triple and has an area of 331.6 square feet, including a closet, giving residents 110.5 square feet each. This was the only triple room on the fifth floor of Bromley Hall with all measurements available to determine an average square footage. According to Bromley Hall Floor Plans, some fourth-floor rooms that are identical to the fifth-floor doubles directly above them are listed as triples allocating each resident about 74.86 square feet of space.
“Sometimes, rooms originally designed to house three occupants are programmed as doubles,” Hacker says in an email. “During periods of increased occupancy, we can easily return those rooms to their three-person design, and we are prepared to make adjustments like that this year, if needed.”
OU has developed a Master Housing Plan with the intent to construct new dormitories, renovate existing halls and demolish older ones. Phase one of OU’s Housing Plan states that there is a plan to build a 600-bed complex on South Green, which is set to open in 2026. The university plans to demolish the remaining dorms on Back South, which will remove 618 beds from the housing portfolio.
This increase in students on campus has impacted many facets of the university, including housing, allocation of campus resources and more. Whether students have to spend extra time waiting for a squat rack to be available at Ping Recreation Center, struggle to find a table at Donkey Coffee & Espresso or find themselves placed on a waitlist for intake at Counseling and Psychological Services, the perceived and shared drawbacks of increasing enrollment can be seen across OU’s campus.
“I understand wanting to grow the school and not wanting to deny people,” Osborne says. “I think you also need to consider not only current students, but if you’re advocating that it is a really good school, you don’t want to change people’s minds when they actually get here.”
Megan Kuhn in her dorm in Jefferson Hall
Housing and Residence Life states in all their floor plans that "while Ohio University will make every effort to provide accurate and complete information, with hundreds of rooms of various occupancies, sizes and shapes on campus, updated frequently, we cannot guarantee that the information will be error-free, and no reliance should be placed on this information.”