• About
  • Editorial Board
    • Staff Writers
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News and Features
    • Professor Phillip Levine Discusses “A Problem of Fit”
      Professor Phillip Levine Discusses “A Problem of Fit”
    • CS Department shifts CS 111 course structure
      CS Department shifts CS 111 course structure
    • WAMI and WRJ host discussion on criminalization of abortion
      WAMI and WRJ host discussion on criminalization of abortion
    • News
      • News in Brief
      • Nation & World
      • President’s Corner
      • Senate Report
    • Features
      • Alumnae Spotlight
      • Eye on Science
      • Faculty Focus
      • LGBTQIA+ Column
  • Opinions
    • Andrew tate: ending the cycle of toxic masculinity
      Andrew tate: ending the cycle of toxic masculinity
    • Turn it off: healing from news fatigue in the digital age
      Turn it off: healing from news fatigue in the digital age
    • Let them eat bread: the unequal effects of food price inflation
      Let them eat bread: the unequal effects of food price inflation
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
    • The Elephant in the Room
  • Arts
    • The 95th Academy Awards Nominations: The Cool and The Controversial
      The 95th Academy Awards Nominations: The Cool and The Controversial
    • Lucy Dacus Brings a Minimal Yet Powerful Performance to Northeastern University
      Lucy Dacus Brings a Minimal Yet Powerful Performance to Northeastern University
    • “Glass Onion” Takes Shots at Easy Targets
      “Glass Onion” Takes Shots at Easy Targets
    • Arts In The News
    • Reviews
    • Music Peek
    • Books Before Boys
  • Sports and Wellness
    • Student-Athlete of October
      Student-Athlete of October
    • Athletics Update Oct. 19, 2022
      Athletics Update Oct. 19, 2022
    • The Case for Body Neutrality
      The Case for Body Neutrality
    • Athlete of the Week
    • Boston Sports Update
    • The Vegan Digest
    • The SHE Corner
  • The Wellesley Snooze
    • Happy Valentine’s Day from Spog
      Happy Valentine’s Day from Spog
    • The Four Best Places to Loudly FaceTime Someone on Campus
      The Four Best Places to Loudly FaceTime Someone on Campus
    • PJ’s Letter to Santa
      PJ’s Letter to Santa
  • Miscellanea
    • President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
      President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
    • Administrators shocked to learn that students dislike being left in dark
      Administrators shocked to learn that students dislike being left in dark
    • 50 Lies You Tell Yourself in Order to Survive Until Graduation
      50 Lies You Tell Yourself in Order to Survive Until Graduation
    • The Dose
    • The Olive Branch
    • Multimedia
      • Galleries
      • Infographics
      • Videos
By Michaela Abrams, Tekla Carlén News, News and FeaturesJune 22, 2021

Confusion regarding room availability leaves 50 students unhoused

Photo courtesy of Isabella Garcia.

Kyra Deehr-Lewis ’24 was disappointed when Freeman Hall, her first-choice dorm, ran out of rooms before she even began her housing selection. When it came time for her 11:50 a.m. time slot, she focused her search towards Beebe Hall, where she encountered the same issue. In fact, she soon found that there were no available doubles on campus that she and her intended roommate, Carolyn Prestowitz ’24, could live in — a situation completely unexpected for both, as 97% of Wellesley students live on campus, according to the US News & World Report. 

Deehr-Lewis and Prestowitz were two of 50 students who were not able to register for housing on June 10, according to Director of Residential Life Helen Wang. While other second-year students were able to register for rooms, some ended up separated from their intended roommates due to a lack of available doubles.  

In an interview with The News, Wang confirmed that the cause of the housing issues was not a room shortage, despite the housing portal showing no available rooms. According to Wang, the inability to house some students resulted from a lack of available, open doubles, or doubles in which neither of the beds had already been reserved.

However, while there are still beds available, selecting them would require existing roommate pairs to separate. Instead of doing so, students have been placed on a list of ‘open assignments’: those who will be assigned rooms together as they open throughout the summer due to students choosing, for various reasons, not to return to Wellesley in the fall. This is likely a result of some upperclassman students having to select doubles without a roommate due to a finite supply of singles, thereby limiting the amount of empty doubles available for rising sophomores to select.  “They technically could go in and pick beds right now, but they’re not beds in spaces that work well for them,” Wang said. She added that after redesignating room sizes with an architectural firm, the College gained a net positive of 60 beds.

Following housing selection, many students impacted by the issues were frustrated with their inability to select a single or double with their desired roommate. Others were forced to split up and choose the only bed left in an already full double or triple. By the end of the day of room selection on Thursday, June 10, the housing portal showed no more available rooms, and many students believed that the root of the issue was a housing shortage.

“How do you not know how many kids you have to have beds for? Because everyone filled out that housing intent form,” Deehr-Lewis said.

Deehr-Lewis and Prestowitz waited to see whether any doubles with two spaces would open up, but eventually there were not even any doubles that had one space left. They logged onto a Zoom with Wang and a few other administrators. In response to another student on the Zoom call who was able to sign up for a room but not with their intended roommate, Wang encouraged the student to keep the room and live with the random roommates.

The affected students filled out a Google Form to confirm their “open assignment” status, meaning that they would hear back about their rooms in mid-July at the earliest, according to Wang. Deehr-Lewis and Prestowitz both stated that they would be happy with any room on campus as long as they can stay roommates — which is not guaranteed — but they are nervous about the wait because they are both fall athletes and are moving in early, on Aug. 18. 

“The fact that we’re moving in before everyone else also doesn’t help the stress,” Deehr-Lewis said. 

During the Zoom, Wang stressed that similar issues with housing occur every year. In fall 2019, dozens of students were displaced due to water damage in Munger Hall and technical issues with StarRez, the platform the College uses to assign housing. At the start of the semester, these students were living in the Davis Hall TV room, the College Club and other makeshift rooms. In 2019, Wang stated that the deterioration of old residence halls might cause more student displacement in the future. Despite these similar problems in the past, Deehr-Lewis felt that Wang was unprepared for the current situation, noting that Wang created the open assignment Google Form during the Zoom and repeatedly went into breakout rooms with other administrators to discuss their plan. 

“It was pretty clear it needed to be prepped for in advance,” Deehr-Lewis said, adding that she felt the Zoom was unhelpful in addressing her concerns. 

Wang was clear that she and her staff understand the stress felt by students who will likely not know until August where they will live for the fall semester, but believes the situation will be resolved.

“I want students to know that I know it’s stressful [and] I want them to know that I really care about them being happy,” Wang said.  “This year you may get your housing assignment later than you want, but it will probably be better than you expect.” 

While the students who have not yet been assigned rooms may not know their room assignment until weeks before the 2021-2022 school year begins, Wang said that waiting to assign rooms is better than assigning less desirable locations now. 

“We made a decision to do open assignments because we knew it would be a better experience for the students,” she said. 

Deehr-Lewis and Prestowitz joked that they would accept anything other than a room in College Club just to have a confirmed housing assignment. 

“I know that I’m a sophomore and sophomores tend to get the brunt of things, but this is not really what I was looking forward to going into my sophomore year,” Prestowitz said. “My standards have dropped so low … I’m pretty frustrated with the system right now.”

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleCS students create alternative to Dish AVI
Next articleWellesley community contemplates the many facets of LGBTQ+ pride

You may also like

Historic extreme cold blasts Wellesley

Pendleton East closure displaces social science departments

Stone-Davis dining staff report mistreatment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

Top Articles

  • Logos of social media apps such as Twitter, Tiktok, Netflix, Spotify, and Discord. Andrew tate: ending the cycle of toxic masculinity
  • Stone-Davis dining staff report mistreatment
  • The 95th Academy Awards Nominations: The Cool and The Contro...
  • A collection of a wide variety of foods in the colors of the rainbow Let them eat bread: the unequal effects of food price inflat...
  • Red envelope that contains money to celebrate the Lunar New Year. America’s cultural appropriation is a modern form of i...

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @Wellesley_News

The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901.

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

  • About
  • Editorial Board
    • Staff Writers
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
COPYRIGHT © 2023 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top