Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Sandy Sternitzky

Lakeland College's residence halls are operating at 106 percent capacity according to Director of Residence Life Jim Bajczyk. There are 625 students currently living on campus in buildings that are suppose to house 602 people.

Several temporary accommodations have been made including tripling students in Arthur M. Krueger Hall, males living in the guest rooms in Krueger, people living in study rooms in Brotz Hall and the Resident Assistants having roommates.

For the time being, these placements will have a major effect on residence life, especially the tripled rooms and the male occupants in Krueger.

What is the most important thing to remember when living in a tripled room? According to freshmen roommates Hailey Wisner, Maria Santelli and Becky Parilek the key is organization, to living three in a room. "You don't just walk in and drop your things anywhere," said Wisner, "you put them where they belong."

Parilek agrees and said, "Yeah, with three girls we've got a lot of stuff, so you have to put it away."

Santelli says, "Luckily, we all get along. The hardest part so far has been only having two Internet hook ups."

That ties right in to the second-most important thing to remember when living in a tripled room: sharing. Wisner states, "We all chip in for food and other things." With an overstuffed room and not enough Internet jacks, many people would look forward to the day when they could be un-tripled, but not these girls. They like things just the way they are.

Another resident who likes things as they are is Davis Stoffel. He is one of the multiple male students that are currently occupying the first floor of Krueger. For obvious reasons, Krueger was not Stoffel's first choice for housing, so he was surprised to open his housing letter and discover his place of residence as Krueger. To summarize his situation, Stoffel simply said, "I love it." If given the option, Stoffel would prefer to live in Krueger the rest of the year rather than having to move.

In reaction to men in Krueger, Hannah Hitterman, who is currently serving for the first time as Krueger Hall Director, said, "It was surprising to me since I knew [Krueger] as an all female hall. [The residents] are making the most of it though; the guys seem to be helping out the girls quite a bit. They have even been involved in the programming that has been going on here."

Despite the opinions of the residents, the accommodations are temporary.

"We did promise the RAs that when spots opened up we would move their roommates out, and after that we are going to empty out the tripled rooms. The first ones will be the male rooms over in Krueger. [Spots are] just not emptying out very quickly at this point; it's a good problem for the school to have. Definitely by the end of the semester we realize that some people transfer out or don't come back, so we predict that there will be some open spaces at semester," Bajczyk said.

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