New townhomes should be freshman dorms

The Lincoln Townhomes are the newest edition to University Housing.

It’s important to continue creating housing to allow more students to live on campus, but these townhomes target the wrong demographic.

Instead of housing freshman and sophomores, the townhomes are reserved for juniors and seniors.

According to Jeff Hale, the executive director of University Housing at Boise State, market studies have shown there was a need for housing for upperclassmen on campus.

“We were hearing anecdotally, as well as formally, that students wanted to remain on campus and there was an inadequate supply of housing,” Hale said. “Market studies, in the context of our own student population as well as those being conducted off campus suggested that there was a demand for high-quality housing on the university campus.”

With three or four bedrooms between two floors equipped with double beds and private bathrooms, these townhomes are too elegant for what they should be building.

The quality of housing  in  Taylor Hall, Keiser Hall, University Suites and University Square are about as high-quality as college students would ever need.

Dorm halls such as Chaffee Hall and Barnes Towers are completely adequate; packing eager 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds into rooms 11-feet by 14-feet like sardines. They usually share a room with at least one  roommate in a building three to seven stories tall, which is frigid in the winter and sweltering near summertime.

That’s college living.

When Boise State houses roughly 2,300 students on campus and had 2,243 incoming freshman in 2011, more rooms need to be made available for freshman, not upperclassmen.

After students’ first year, they start thinking about moving off campus into a house or an apartment.

“They could use some more on-campus housing probably for incoming freshman, because the older you get, you want to move away and be on your own,” said Briana Berreman, a sophomore business administration and human resources major who currently lives in the townhomes.

Incoming freshman, first-year students and returning second-years need more housing to choose from.

Students who live on campus are generally more successful and more social. It only makes sense for freshman to start off with this opportunity.

“(Boise State is) getting more people to come, which is really nice because it’s turning it into more of a college rather than a commuter campus,” Berreman said. “I think freshman year, you should be in the dorms because you meet so many people and get the whole experience.”

The freshman experience is supposed to be on campus.  It’s where everything happens. Living on campus, right in the middle of all the action, is where freshman should be.

Once junior and senior year rolls around, students grow out of their tiny dorm rooms and need to move toward their own
independence.

It’s hard to become more independent with limited lease options.  The townhomes  will offer a nine-month lease and a 12-month lease, each with their own vices.

The nine-month lease doesn’t allow students to stay over holiday breaks and the 12-month lease requires students to take classes in the summer.

Either way, students are bound in some way, limiting their independence.

Freshman should not have to figure out living off campus because there isn’t enough space. Boise State needs to build more freshman dorms with 500-plus beds rather than high quality townhomes that  have a mere 360 beds.