Image of Kimball Hall provided by the Office of Residential Life.
This summer, the unprecedented size of Skidmore College’s current first-year class caused challenges for college systems which were not designed to support such a volume of students. Issues associated with high enrollment numbers were amplified by the fact that during the summer of 2022, the College opted for a new system for housing management. The first sign that something was awry appeared — or rather, didn’t appear — in late April when the College was expected to open apartment applications as they had in past years. Instead, the early phase of housing selection was delayed repeatedly until June 23rd. Due to the delays, housing applications, which originally would have been open for a month, were open for just four days. Yet, the trouble was just beginning as rising juniors and seniors began to select on-campus apartments. Many upperclassmen expected to get placements easily, but found themselves unable to secure housing. Meanwhile, rising sophomores and incoming first-years similarly encountered trouble obtaining rooms in residence halls.
This fall, Katie Wright, Interim Housing Director of Residential Life, answered questions concerning the summer housing process. She addressed Skidmore’s switch to the StarRez portal system, explaining, “StarRez is more user-intuitive and provides students with an accurate and comprehensive sense of what spaces are available at the time of selection.” Wright also expressed hope that the new system would make the process easier: “StarRez allows us to clearly identify features of space (e.g., accessibility features, special interest housing status) and allows students to easily identify and confirm roommate groups and make decisions on behalf of the group.” Notably, the Assistant Director for Housing Operations position in the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) has been vacant throughout this saga. Typically, this staff member would facilitate the housing process, but the absence of a permanent employee exacerbated an already difficult procedure.
In order to further understand the system transition and resulting chaos, we conducted interviews with three students affected by the failures of the housing system. Phoenix Goldenberg ‘25 described their frustrations with the housing process as a transgender student. They first began to feel something was wrong when selection was delayed with minimal communication from ResLife. They had hoped to be on the gender inclusive floor in Jonsson Tower so as not to be forced to room with a roommate of their assigned gender at birth. However, this floor was removed without warning from the available housing options. When Goldenberg contacted ResLife, they at first received no response. After repeated phone calls, they were informed that they would have no choice but to room with their assigned gender at birth. For transgender students, this is an extremely discomforting prospect which could even be dangerous, and Goldenberg were shocked at the possibility that they would have to do so. After negotiations, this student was able to secure gender-inclusive housing, but the amount of such housing available was dramatically reduced this school year. The fact that one student, in their own words, “got lucky,” should not distract from the many who did not.
In addition to the removal of the gender inclusive floor, Goldenberg’s floor in Howe Hall was unexpectedly reclassified as a quiet, substance-free floor. This resulted in many students who did not wish to be in that community being placed in it, as well as many who did wish to be in it being placed elsewhere. Such communities are integral students’ feelings of safety on campus. When communities which students make use of are removed, their comfort is jeopardized.
Goldenberg also voiced frustration with the rapid pace of selection, as they had mere days to make arrangements with their workplace to select at their assigned time. They noted that this was part of a pattern of lack of communications from ResLife, one echoed by other students. Severe staffing shortages in the ResLife office exacerbated the ongoing lack of transparency and communication, which discouraged students from contacting ResLife or advocating for their needs.
In response to these concerns, Wright assured us that ResLife is already planning the 2023-24 housing process and intends for it to be completed by the end of the spring semester. Wright also emphasized that ResLife is working on increasing gender-inclusive housing, mentioning “StarRez allows us to label rooms in such a way that a student of any gender has the option to select the space.” ResLife has also committed themselves to working with individual students who need support.
Unfortunately, the issues with the housing process extended beyond the dorms. Julia Cannistraro, ‘24, described her discouraging attempt to choose an apartment. Cannistraro hoped to get a four-person apartment with friends. Cannistraro anticipated that she would move from the dorms to an apartment in her junior year, a rite of passage that Skidmore advertises to prospective students. But when she logged on to StarRez Portal to choose her housing on June 30, Cannistraro found no available apartments. This turn of events shocked Cannistraro, as her group had a high lottery number on the first day for the class of 2024 to pick housing. Cannistraro and her friends compromised by deciding to select single and double rooms in Wait Hall. At 11:00 AM on July 6, her friends picked their Wait dorm rooms. But when Cannistraro logged on to choose her room just five minutes later, the entire building was full. Dismayed, she found herself alone in another hall. Over the summer, Cannistraro called and emailed ResLife with no response. On July 16, after much confusion, ResLife moved her into a room in Wait. Unfortunately, Cannistraro’s housing saga was not over.
On August 3, ResLife emailed all students explaining that there were five vacant apartments, each with a capacity for five people. This new information conjured a flurry of stress for four person groups seeking housing. Apartment groups who had been unable to obtain housing were faced with three options: find a fifth member, split up and combine with another group, or resign to living in the dorms. With such little notice, Cannistraro’s group was unable to find a fifth member. Exhausted by the process, Cannistraro decided to keep her single in Wait, while the rest of her friends managed to secure a Sussman Village apartment by combining with another group. While ResLife intended to create more eoptions by offering up these apartments, they resulted in additional stress for many students, many of whom still did not receive an apartment assignment.
Cannistraro said the lack of communication was the most challenging part of the situation. She acknowledges that ResLife was probably dealing with many similar calls, but “just simply being ignored and not getting a response made me feel like they didn’t care.”
Cannistraro and her friends were far from the only students struggling with their apartment selection. A student who wishes to remain anonymous also explained her “very, very long” housing process. She had a very similar experience to Cannistraro, and felt the same confusion and stress. The student said that when she and her friends tried to choose an apartment and found none left, “we had thought it was a technical glitch… my immediate thought was that it’s just not possible. There’s no way. That whole night we were in panic mode.” In addition, the student was disappointed in communication with ResLife. She explained, “I am a firm believer that any kind of communication is better than no communication at all.” This student did add that everything turned out okay, and she is now happy in her apartment. ResLife managed to pull through for some students at the end of the process, and the five new apartments demonstrate that ResLife attempted to adapt to the difficult situation and meet the wants of students.
Cannistraro and the anonymous interviewee are among the many Skidmore students wondering why the housing process was so delayed and stressful. Wright said that as ResLife was setting up sophomore housing selection, some rooms that should have been available disappeared. ResLife managed to fix the issue, but the malfunction compelled the office to push the entire selection back. Wright provided insight into the decision to open up five more apartments in Sussman Village after selection started. The apartments were initially set aside as quarantine housing in the event of testing positive for COVID-19, but the large freshmen class meant that the College was already low on housing. Skidmore’s isolation-in-place COVID policy allowed ResLife to provide the new apartments, at the expense of quarantine housing, an expected accommodation on post-pandemic college campuses. The complex entanglement of all these issues caused headaches for students and staff alike, but now that the new system is in place and configured, things are looking up for the future of housing selection at Skidmore.