Campus Dorms Still Overcrowded

The Houstonian (Sep. 4) has a story about overcrowded dorms and 75 students living in the Univeristy Hotel and on Sorority Hill:

A coordinated over-assigning of rooms coupled with university policy forced more than 75 students into living in the University Hotel or tripling up in rooms designed for two residents. The overcrowding also placed students in sorority houses and resident advisors’ rooms.
Residence Life allows new students and upperclassmen to begin registering for one of the 3,300 available beds in July until they’re full. Due to the university’s requirement that first year students live on-campus, even if incoming freshman had not signed up for housing before all of the beds were taken, they still must be placed in on-campus housing.

Out of the 3,300 beds available on campus, 62 percent is reserved for first year students, and the other 38 percent is reserved for upperclassmen. This rule meant that 327 upperclassmen weren’t able to register for housing this past year.

A new dorm complex is slated for SHSU’s south district, but it won’t be completed until 2016.

Of the students who were displaced, 37 wound up staying in the University Hotel.

Those tripled up are in Estill Hall, Belvin-Buchanan Hall and White Hall.

Overcrowding is a practice used by universities, including SHSU, to ensure the maximum number of students can be admitted while still following the university policy about first year students being on campus. Part of the complications are that between 50 and 100 students don’t show up each year despite paying a deposit and registering for a room.

Residence Life is also taking advantage of sorority recruitment which ended this past weekend. Those recruited were living in non-sorority dorms but will move into the houses. This frees up space for the students temporarily placed in houses on sorority hill to move into a permanent dorm somewhere else on campus.