Students living in crowded residences might soon experience relief—in the form of new common room TVs and couches—if a bid by the Main Campus Residents’ Council (MCRC) is ed by the University.
In a report given at the Sept. 12 MCRC General Assembly, President Alexis Meyerman said she sent a memo requesting $100,000 from the Senate Residence Committee (SRC).
MCRC wants to use the money to improve conditions in the packed facilities, she told the Journal.
“This request came out of what students told us,” Meyerman said. “They knew we couldn’t change the [residence] overcrowding itself, but they thought we could do something with the leftover space.”
Meyerman said the money could be spent in several ways. She said the MCRC is considering purchasing new equipment and converting unused space.
“For example, the lower common room in Victoria Hall is a large space that is underused. Students are asking for televisions, couches and maybe more pool tables,” she said. “Really, we want to facilitate social interaction between students.”
Meyerman also said she’d like to create more quiet areas for student work.
“We have always had a shortage of study space, and this year we have even less,” she said, “We might be able to have some of the money go towards that as well.”
Alex Keddy, ArtSci ’09, lives in a Victoria Hall economy double, said he didn’t think the MCRC initiative addressed the real problem.
“My roommate is supposed to be temporary, but the room is so crowded that we can’t both work in there at once, and our floor doesn’t have a common room,” he said. “I don’t think TVs would help very much—that’s kind of useless.
“What we need is more space.”
Sean Kim, Comm ’09, a resident of Victoria Hall, agreed.
“[Our floor] basically just has to hang out in the hall,” he said. “Better facilities would be nice.”
The MCRC report states that addressing the prevention of future overcrowding in residences should be left to the SRC.
The SRC is a nine-member committee of s and faculty responsible for advising the University on residence policy.
A six-person ad-hoc committee, composed of the MCRC Executive, General Council and a representative from Jean Royce Hall Council, wrote the report.
The committee calculated that each additional student living in residence contributes $2,200 in surplus revenue to University Residences. The committee said this adds up to a $500,000 windfall.
According to the report, a $100,000 fund would “be sufficient to make significant and material improvements to residences this year while only representing a contribution of 20 per cent to the revenue windfall.” However, Meyerman said the amount of money requested may change if initial overcrowding numbers were inflated.
“Overcrowding wasn’t as big an issue as originally thought,” she said.
Mandy Daniel, manager of residence issions, said the initial estimates about residence crowding were too high.
“We have 3,849 students in residence right now, last year we had 3,540, and in 2003 we had 3,761 students,” she said. “We [also] had 47 student no-shows, so this has allowed us to move some students out of temporary space.”
Daniel added that not all students want to move.
“We have some empty rooms being offered to students in economy doubles, and some students are turning us down,” she said. “We will be ing all students in economy doubles, and continue offering empty rooms to those interested in moving.”
Meyerman said the MCRC hopes to have its request approved and implement changes by December.
She added she’s ed Roxy Denniston-Stewart, associate dean of student affairs, and will meet with her to discuss the fund.
“If we get it, we’ll create a second committee to address how the money is spent,” Meyerman said.
Denniston-Stewart said she had not read the entire report, but that the SRC would be reviewing the proposal.
“It will not be up to me to make this decision, it will be the entire committee,” she said. “Clearly, this would be a departure from planned spending.”
Denniston-Stewart stressed that many issues need to be looked at before a decision is made.
“We need a clear rationale or criteria, and we need to ask whether this response is justifiable,” she said. “Will it really impact the students significantly?”
Meyerman said students would be consulted about all committee decisions.
“In total we have 106 floor representatives who could speak their minds and talk to their floors,” she said.
The committee is also looking for input from the First Year Advisory Committee and is considering an open forum to address student concerns, she said. The Committee consists of first-year students who are responsible for promoting awareness of MCRC to first-year students, as well as acting as the voice of first-years on MCRC.
Natasha Hackshaw, ArtSci ’09 and a resident of Ban Righ Hall, said she applauded the MCRC initiative.
“I think that’s a great idea,” she said. “I would love to have a common room, but even just a toaster would be great.”
Mona Enachescu, ArtSci ’09, said she agreed.
“Improvements would be cool,” she said. “Our bathroom sink is leaking, so maybe they could fix that too.”
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