With this year’s record-setting freshman class, the Department of Residential Life was pressed to accommodate the housing needs of the freshman class.

Residential Life allows many more students to submit contracts than there are beds available.

One effort to accommodate the demand saw 16 male students and 36 female students placed in student staff members’ rooms temporarily. Student staff members usually have rooms to themselves.

Director of Residential Life Frankie Minor said those numbers represent the most students who have ever been placed into student staff rooms.

“We don’t want to turn away any student who wants to live on campus, particularly an incoming freshman,” Minor said. “So if we only filled up to our normal capacity within two weeks of the semester, I’ve got 100 spaces open.”

Throughout the spring and summer, student staff members were given advance notice that exceeding housing capacity is always a possibility and that freshmen may need to be placed in student staff rooms if necessary.

When student staff members found out that this was actually going to happen, reactions were mixed. Many were confused and upset when they realized they weren’t going to have a single room, and they didn’t know when the freshmen would be placed in a permanent housing assignment.

Riley Nygren, a sophomore peer adviser in Lathrop Hall, is still living with a freshman roommate.

“I figured that it’d be a two- or three-week deal,” Nygren said in an email. “I knew from training that I’d get a roommate but I wasn’t happy… At some point (Residential Life) needs to think it from the perspective of their student staff members (sic).”

Nygren said her roommate is expected to move out by the end of this week.

Residential Life typically provides student staff with single rooms and a meal plan as compensation for the work they do. The staff members with temporary roommates were additionally compensated for the amount of time the student was living with them by receiving a $25 E.Z. Charge credit per week.

Also, staff members were credited the difference between the price of a single room and the price of a double room for the time that a student was living with them.

The students who were assigned a room with student staff were typically those who submitted a contract but were unable to choose a room through the Residents’ Online Access to Rooms system. Students who made the deadline were guaranteed housing, so they were placed into a temporary room until other accommodations could be made.

One of these students was freshman Madeline Felipez. When she was notified that she would be living with a peer adviser in Hatch Hall, she was told that she could be living there anywhere from one to six weeks.

“I didn’t really think much of it at first, but it was sort of hard to leave the hall after a few weeks just having made friends with people in the dorm,” Felipez said. “I felt bad for the PA because she wasn’t supposed to have a roommate.”

Felipez moved to College Avenue Hall after three weeks of living with her peer adviser.

Minor said there are still three students who have yet to be moved to other accommodations. Minor said Residential Life does not know when these students will be moved.

“This year represents the most students we’ve had and the longest that we’ve had to keep them in,” Minor said. “When we’ve had to utilize student staff rooms before, typically we’ve had them out by the middle of September.”

Residential Life’s plans to deal with the issue of growing freshman classes include a new residence hall tentatively called Virginia Avenue South, which will hold 330 beds for students.

Also, plans are being discussed to rebuild Jones, Lathrop and Laws so that they will accommodate more students. Both of these projects will not be completed for a few years.