When Alex Stamm, Grand Blanc sophomore, opened up her email from Residential Life this past week, she said that she found the choice of wording rather humorous.

     “They emailed me saying ‘Congratulations!’” said Stamm, who was placed in Mitchell Towers for her junior year. “Because of course, I love that I get to live in a dorm for my third year in a row.”

     Because Albion is a residential college, students are required to live on campus as opposed to looking in the community for other housing options. According to the student handbook, only students that commute from home less than 50 miles away, are married, have legal dependents, or are 23 or older are exempt from the residential policy.

     “I understand that this is a residential college, but since it is, they should have more options,” Stamm said. “There were barely any options for [students who will be] juniors next year. Juniors weren’t even placed in Munger this year.”

     Brandi Schuman, assistant director of residential life, said that the lack of options for juniors this year was related to the large senior class size.

 

     "Because this senior class is the largest senior class to come through Albion, juniors are not able to live in housing options such as Munger or Briton apartments,” Schuman said. "Depending on class sizes, juniors will be able to live in these [places] in the future. Based on the current class size of juniors, there's a good chance they'll be able to live [in Munger] next year."

     According to Ken Kolmodin, associate vice president for facilities, the college is aware of the need for more housing and residential buildings.

     “I think that there’s recognition that [Albion] needs more places like the Mae,” Kolmodin said. “The college is in the middle of the strategic planning process right now, and I think that there’s going to be a strong residential emphasis in that. What we’d basically like to do is create a situation where as you move forward in your college career, you can live more and more independently.”

     While Bob Okerman, maintenance supervisor for housing, said that he is not directly involved with the planning for the new tenure plan, everyone is involved with the input process.

     “One of the things that [facilities and maintenance] are exploring right now is where we want these residential halls that we have to be in the next ten years,” Okerman said.

     According to Okerman, the college is looking at which of the annexes that they want to keep and whether or not they should remodel the current residential halls (Mitchell was the most recently constructed in 1966) and apartments.

     This summer, facilities hopes to finish their remodeling plan at Munger Place. According to Kolmodin, they have been updating the kitchens and other maintenance issues, and now only have one floor to go.

     While some students may argue that there isn’t enough housing options on campus, Okerman said that things have improved in the last few years.

     “[Upperclassmen] primarily lived within the main residence halls [before Munger and the Mae became options],” Okerman said. “There were also the Briton and Burns apartments, but we saw a need in student feedback, so we expanded those options.”

     Okerman said that while he is unsure as to why students are not allowed to live in within the community, he does think that it’s a good idea. According to Okerman, a privately-owned house that students were living in once caught on fire, which brought up concern about students living on their own.

     “When the college has possession of the house, the students may not like us to be their landlord, but at least they can be rest-assured that we’re going to look into making sure that the building is safe,” Okerman said.

     According to Schuman, there is a committee that reviews applications of students wanting to live off-campus in order to decide if there really is a need to live off-campus.