A group of house fellows will be moving to new rooms this coming fall to free up space for students who would otherwise live in temporary spaces.
Twenty-eight house fellows living in Ogg, Elizabeth Waters and Smith residence halls will be moving out of their two-bedroom rooms — which includes a bathroom — and into single rooms where they will share bathrooms with residents, according to UW-Madison Housing Director Jeff Novak.
Novak said the change was made to provide a more consistent compensation to all house fellows at UW-Madison, but that it does more than create equality in housing situations among the 165 house fellows.
With 28 house fellows moving from double rooms to singles, more students — who otherwise would be live in temporary spaces throughout the residence halls — can be placed into dorms.
Approximately 80 to 90 students each year live in temporary housing locations throughout the dorms. Novak said students are put in temporary spaces because residents often leave the dorms throughout the semester to pursue internship and study abroad opportunities due to their ability to be released from their housing contract at the end of a semester without an additional charge.
“Each year, we open up with greater numbers of students than spaces we have and often put students in temporary space like floor lounges,” Novak said. “This will allow us to not have to put students in [these] spaces.”
Novak said the change will create an additional 10 residence hall spaces for students to live in.
These rooms with private bathrooms will be available to incoming students. He said the rooms are beneficial because students who need special accommodations can request them.
“We actually need rooms like that more and more for people who have [disabilities] or special accomodations for bathrooms in their room,” Novak said. “This gives us more of an ability to accommodate those students.”
While double rooms with bathrooms — which were provided free-of-charge to house fellows — cost approximately $200 more than regular double rooms in halls like Ogg, Novak stressed that the goal of this change was not to make additional money.
“It is not about making 200 more dollars,” Novak said. “That is not accurate. There are actually students who prefer [these rooms].”
