Home Improvements
Residential Life Takes On Multiyear Plan For Better Living
The stench of body odor and the sight of battered, dirty furniture, dirt-colored carpet and bland, pastel walls immediately greet residents entering the lounge. Walking up the creaky stairs on a hot day can turn a forehead into a watershed of sweat. After a long day, the 210 people calling this place home return to dimly lit rooms filled with bulky, decades-old furniture. Some rooms cover cracked windows and rusty frames with pale, yellow blinds. The overstressed plumbing groans with every flush of the toilet.
While all this may sound like a low-income housing project in a hardscrabble neighborhood, this is actually Whittier College’s Stauffer Residence Hall, home to 210 students who reside in the dorms for the academic year and sometimes wonder, “How am I spending nearly $7,000 dollars a year to live here?”
Fifty percent of Whittier College students live on campus in one of the school’s nine residential halls: Stauffer, Johnson, Turner, Ball, Wardman, Arbor Ridge, Harris, Campbell, and Wanberg. Each building is unique and houses between 30 to 200 students. The dorms here recently made a top-ten list for the wrong reasons. The 2013 Princeton Review ranked them as being the ninth-worst dorms among public and private schools, military and liberal arts colleges. The worst, according to the survey, was the United States Marine Academy, followed by Tuskegee University, the University of New Mexico, the United States Coast Guard Academy, University of Washington, Hampton University, College of the Ozarks, and United States Naval Academy. Alfred University was ranked tenth worst in the country, right behind Whittier.
“One of the biggest issues Whittier College faces is the extremely poor-quality of dorms,” said sophomore Maddie McMurray as she sat in the lounge of Harris Residence Hall. Harris, a nearly 30-year-old residence hall, was one of the few residence halls to receive some improvements over the summer.
“The majority of the furniture is old, broken, and heavily used. The carpet smells musty, toilets clog frequently, and the [interior] rooms haven’t been painted in quite some time,” McMurray added, giving a tour of her room. “Apparently last year, Harris A [building] was home to termites and when it rains the ceilings of the rooms on the top floor cave in.”
“Harris A [building] was home to termites and when it rains the ceilings of the rooms on the top floor cave in.”
If McMurray’s room sounds familiar, hang in there because help is on the way. In November 2013, The Office of Residential Life conducted a survey to collect student feedback on their residential experiences and to assess improvement needs. Since then, Residential Life has undertaken a $1.45 million, seven-year program to improve living conditions.
In an email sent out to all Whittier College students in September 2015, Associate Dean of Students Andre Coleman addressed the plan, stating, “As a College, we started the change process by truly listening to what you had to say. It was hard to hear, but what you shared was accurate, honest and truthful. It became clear to us that we had to improve…and quickly! September 2013 marked a new era for Residential Life with new leadership and structure, a new mission statement, as well as a renewed commitment to improving the residential living learning experience.”
Coleman went on to state, “Our new structure has allowed us to become more responsive through the creation of three Assistant Director (AD) positions. One position in particular, the Assistant Director for Operations role was developed specifically to improve the residence halls.”
According to Assistant Director of Residential Life and Operations, Felirose Tamparong, the department plans to make renovations in all buildings simultaneously as opposed to focusing on one building at a time. “We firmly believe that all residents should experience an improved living environment and not get lucky with one building at a time,” said Tamparong.
She said that the improvement plan stems directly from the student survey. “The Office of Residence Life develops projects from the quality-of-life survey that allows residents to express what they like and don’t like, and what they hope to see in their residence halls.
Plans call for furniture replacement, room painting, keyless entry, resurfacing of residence hall doors, carpet replacement, restroom remodeling, and general hall maintenance (see schedule below).
Work started this past summer on revamping and enhancing the dorms. A 16-student crew painted every room in Stauffer, Johnson, Turner, Wanberg, and Ball halls. Additional upgrades completed over the summer include: creating outdoor living areas (Ball, Turner & Harris A/B/C/D buildings); renovating Turner’s kitchen; constructed the Wanberg Kitchen; installing new carpeting (Johnson, Ball, Turner & Wanberg); creating a common area/installing lounge furniture in all residence halls; renovating Ball Basement into a student lounge for residential students; developing the Ball Dance Studio, creating “The Cellar” Sports Lounge (Wanberg Basement); installing water-saving landscaping (Wanberg, Harris, Ball, & Johnson) and new water saving/low flow shower heads in all halls; upgrading all laundry facilities with web-enabled smart machines.
While students appreciate the effort, some seniors wish they could have come a little sooner. “New keys are nice, but what about adding air conditioning to the buildings, improving the WiFi, or building new residence halls that are up to date with other schools in SCIAC’s?” asked senior Wanberg Hall resident Kevin Marquez.
Others pointed to the massive renovation of the Science and Learning Center and wondered why there hasn’t been a similar commitment to residential facilities. Construction began on the state-of-the-art Science and Learning Center in the fall of 2014. According to Whittier College, the project will include complete renovation of the existing foundation, additions of media-ready classrooms, flexible teaching laboratories, research wet and dry laboratories, collaboration pods, and rooftop colloquium, among other facilities. The project is estimated to cost $52.5 million dollars, and is being funded by grants and tuition dollars.
“I understand that the Science Center was also in desperate need of improvements. However, students spend maybe one to three hours daily in the [Science] center whereas they live, sleep, and study in dorms, which are in just as poor quality if not worse,” said McMurray.
Residential Life says it has no plans to build new housing at this time. “A couple of years ago, a consulting company did a study to assess if there was a need for a new residence hall. They conducted focus groups with students, they assessed previous and current housing capacities numbers and came to the conclusion that there was no immediate need to build a new residence hall,” said Tamparong.
Tamparong said Phase 2 of Residential Life’s master plan is scheduled for summer 2016. “It is difficult to coordinate major renovations and improvements during the academic year when students are on campus. In order to limit the potential disruption to students, the capital improvements will be limited to summer as it provides the greatest window of opportunity with the least amount of disruption to students,” said Tamparong. “We are hoping that this plan will bring consistency of furniture to each of the residence halls as well as provide a space for students to be comfortable and enjoy the halls where they live.” said Tamparaong.
“Student feedback is very important to us,” she continued. “It is difficult to hear students complain about the residence halls but not give us ideas of what they want to see in the halls. We are open to suggestions. That’s very helpful to us. As a department we know that the halls have been lacking attention and we have made some great strides within the past 2 years to turn things around.”
Residential Year by Year Improvement Plan
Phase 1 (2015)
· Johnson receives new furniture and mattresses (chairs were purchased in 2014)*
· New room chairs, carpeting and painting for Turner Hall
· Wanberg restrooms will be refreshed
· All residence hall doors will be resurfaced
Phase 2 (2016)
· Replacing half of the furniture in Stauffer (other have to completed during phase 3) and all of Wanberg
· Installing new chairs in Wanberg
· Room painting for Ball and Wanberg
Phase 3 (2017)
· Completion of Stauffer furniture replacement and total replacement of Harris C & D
· Replacement of room chairs and mattress in Harris C & D
· Painting all Harris Rooms
Phase 4 (2018)
· New furniture for Ball
· Room chairs for Ball, Harris A and Harris B
· Carpet replacement in Ball, Johnson and Wanberg
· Painting Wardman rooms
· Refreshing restrooms in Johnson and Turner
Phase 5 (2019)
· Harris A & B furniture replacement
· Mattress replacement in Ball
· New carpeting for Harris A/B/C/D and Stauffer
· 2nd rotation of Stauffer room painting
· Refreshing restrooms in Ball, Harris A/B/C/D and Turner
Phase 6 (2020)
· Partial replacement of Turner furniture
· Finalize the replacement of all mattress (Harris A/B, Stauffer, Turner, and Wanberg)
· 2nd rotation of Turner painting
Phase 7 (2021)
· Complete replacement of Turner furniture
· Wardman furniture (including chairs, mattresses and carpeting
· Remodeling of Ball, Johnson and Stauffer kitchens
· Refreshing of Wardman restrooms
