New School to Crack Down on Dorms

            For 19-year old Clair Young, returning to New York after her winter break in Nebraska provided a much needed escape from her country home.  When she finally arrived in her room at the Loeb residence hall, to her surprise, a new roommate had moved in and had promptly placed her entire wardrobe on top of Young’s bed and dresser. “The idea of having all of my stuff around there for this unknown girl to take and touch freaked me out.  For all I knew, she could have been rummaging through my shit for days,” said Young. 

            Students of The New School’s dorms are not only dealing with the stress of not knowing if or when they will actually be receiving new roommates but some are now dealing with extra charges for not reporting vacant rooms within their dorm suites. The campus wide housing shortage is caused by the new arrival of Parson’s spring semester students who have been moving in since the spring semester started.

            “It’s nice that they’ve accepted spring semester students at Parsons” said Jose Romero, a security guard at Loeb residence hall, “but this housing shortage is serious and they want every room filled.”  As evident by the “procedures for a vacant room” signs hung in every hallway throughout New School residence halls, it’s been made clear that if you have vacant space you must report it to the housing authority immediately.

            “It’s not as big of a problem here,” said NYU’s Keith Oberlin, a sophomore in the residence halls at NYU.  “We have so many more residence halls that finding space for new students is never really a problem.”  Oberlin might be right; NYU has 23 residence halls, seven devoted solely for freshman, where as The New School only has six total.    

            Efforts are being made by The New School employers who have been checking rooms to find unfilled beds to place students.  There could be serious repercussions to those who do not report empty space, as seen last semester when the housing authority could actually charge students for an empty room that students didn’t report.  There is no word on whether this will happen again but Hall Director Kelly Joyce says there is a good possibility of seeing charges made to students who don’t report.