By Megan Finnerty
Asst. Campus Editor

With another year of record enrollment looming ahead for Purdue, many efforts are being made within University Residences to ensure that the lessons learned from last year's enrollment are being implemented.

"We learned from last year, and we (are) prepared for next year," said Kate Walker, marketing and communications coordinator for University Residences. "There is an occupancy planning committee that meets weekly, and we talk about the impacts that will be felt by current students, families, new students and facilities. And that has made a great difference in that we have really pulled together and been creative to find solutions to the space issue."

The space issue Walker is referring to is the problem of finding rooms for all the incoming freshmen and returning students within University housing. According to Lanny Wilson, director of administration for University Residences, 11,447 single undergraduate students lived in University housing this year. Wilson and others expect next year's students to exceed that number.

To help keep the numbers of students residing in temporary housing for the first few days of fall semester low, for the first time ever, on-campus housing officials set a deadline — March 15 — for incoming freshmen housing applications. This enabled them to begin to plan and get an estimate of who will be living on campus next year.

To accommodate all the new students and the current ones, 180 new double occupancy rooms will be added in the Purdue Village by annexing another two buildings in addition to the ones that were annexed by University Residences last year.

Other plans to adapt to the influx of students next year include filling all Hilltop Apartments to capacity, except for those students that have already arranged to live in apartments below their capacity.

"In the past, we allowed some apartments in Hilltop to be rented as singles and doubles when they were really designed to hold more," Walker said. "Now, except for students that live there now and have those arrangements, we are maximizing our occupancy."

Wilson assures, however, that maximizing occupancy in on-campus housing does not include putting three people in a room designed for only two. This means that some students who missed the deadline might have temporary arrangements such as living in study lounges and unused residence assistants' rooms in residence halls or other alternative housing for a few days. Waiting lists will be created to distribute housing on a first-come, first-serve basis. And even all this does not guarantee new students housing on campus.

"We do not assure space to new students who apply for housing after March 15," Wilson said.

The numbers are fluid for housing, and spaces cannot be guaranteed because some new students sign housing contracts but have not actually decided to come to Purdue. Other students change their minds over the summer and decide to not go to college or to not come to Purdue. And, according to Walker, there are many reasons why some students who have housing contracts never show up for classes the first week of school.

"It's a balancing game that we're playing but we are confident that we are going to be in good shape next year," Walker said.