Photo courtesy of Daviel Schulman
If you live in Burdick, Freeman, Hamilton, Katherine Blunt, Knowlton, Lazrus, Smith or Windham, the common rooms that you once took for granted when you needed a space to study or hang out with friends have been turned into temporary dorm rooms. The loss of common rooms this year was done in order to accomodate the unusually large number of students on campus this semester. In an email, Dean Rothenberger, the Assistant Dean for Residential Education and Living, explained, “In a typical fall semester we would see about 150 students studying away in the fall, however this fall there are 30 students studying away which led to a greater number of students needing to be housed on campus.” Additionally, significantly less students applied to live off campus this semester (only about 40 compared with approximately 170 last year). The houses with converted common rooms were specifically chosen based on size and level of privacy. According to Dean Rothenberger, the rooms were originally set up to house three to six students each, but now many have only two to four students because people found other places to live. While some upperclass students filled out a form over the summer and chose to live in common rooms, most students were assigned to the rooms based on lower lottery numbers and many first-years or transfer students were randomly assigned to them. The College incentivized living in common rooms by offering a 200 point reduction for students’ lottery numbers next year.
When students found out they would be living in common rooms this year, their initial reactions were a mixture of surprise, confusion, and curiosity. Their online housing assignments simply read “CR,” so it took some students a while to figure out that stood for “Common Room.” Because there are not many photos of the inside of residence houses on the Connecticut College website, students assigned to common rooms were not sure what to expect. David Neelappa ‘24, who lives in the Katherine Blunt common room, wondered how five people would be able to fit in a single common room. He had lived in Katherine Blunt House during his first year at Conn but did not remember how big the room was. Calvin Bates ‘25, who lives in the Hamilton second floor common room with two other roommates was “relieved to see it was more spacious than [he] anticipated.” Claire Himmel ‘25, who also lives in a Hamilton common room on the third floor shared, “It was really funny when we first got to the room because the beds were lined up three in a row like summer camp bunks. We did a bit of rearranging though which allowed everyone to have their own areas within the room.”
The KB and Windham house common rooms, among others, were supposed to have five students living in them but ended up only having three people each, making them even more spacious (except for the three extra sets of furniture). It can be difficult for anyone to adjust to living with other students. Neither Neelappa nor Hannah Stoever ‘24, who lives in the Windham common room, knew their roommates prior to moving in. They got their first choices of dorm, but did not expect to be placed in the common rooms. Neelappa expressed that at first, “being in a common room added to that level of awkwardness [between roommates].” Now, he and his roommates have gotten used to checking in with each other and keeping track of each other’s schedules. Himmel also said she and her roommates are “all respectful of each other and have open communication.”
Common rooms have features that are uncommon to most typical dorm rooms. Bates, Himmel, Stoever, and Neelappa all have televisions that came with their rooms. Although they are not all connected to cable, most of them support TV streaming services. Bates and Himmel have sinks and countertops in their Hamilton common rooms, which they noted as big advantages. Stoever and Neelappa’s rooms came with chalkboards and (boarded up) fireplaces. Neelappa’s common room even included a wooden podium, which one of his roommates uses for sketching. While some of these features have been beneficial to students living in certain common rooms, others have served as slight inconveniences. The KB common room has ground-level windows on Cro Boulevard, so it can be noisy and harder to have privacy if Neelappa and his roommates do not keep them closed. Stoever’s Windham common room is also a bit noisy. Bates and Neelappa noted that their common rooms are sort of hidden or isolated from the rest of the dorms on their floor. The KB common room is adjacent to Coffee Grounds, whereas the rest of the KB dorm rooms are past the main entrance and down the hallway. The only first floor bathroom is also down the hall, which is inconvenient for Neelappa and his roommates. Stoever considers herself lucky to have a private bathroom in her Windham common room, but it has been difficult for her to obtain paper towels and soap unless she and her roommates buy those products themselves. The only entrance to their bathroom is inside their common room, so it is not regularly restocked by janitorial staff. Another one of the possible issues with students living in common rooms is not having spaces for house/floor events. Dean Rothenberger explained, “Fortunately many of the houses that have common rooms occupied as student rooms right now have alternatives to gather – for example – KB has Coffee Grounds as a programming space and Smith/Burdick has the game room. Hamilton has the first floor common room as well as the large Lambdin common room right down the second floor hallway.”
These common room dorms should not be permanent. Dean Rothenberger explained, “We do hope that we are able to relocate students out of these spaces next semester as we forecast more students studying away next semester as well as some students who will graduate in December.” However, Bates, Himmel, Neelappa, and Stoever are all happy with their current dorm situations and said they would most likely prefer to stay in their common rooms if given the chance to move. Bates thinks he would regret moving somewhere else because it would make him realize how lucky he was to have the luxuries that come with living in a common room. Stoever was hoping to live in Windham this year and likes the group of people in her house. Neelappa remarked, “While you can say living in a common room is an isolating space, it’s definitely unique…I’m one of the three people who can say they lived in the KB common room.”
