Jameson Andrews ’24 and Simon Hoke ’24 currently live in a new Bundy double, and their room is cramped. In its current layout, when Hoke opens the drawers of his split-in-half, under-the-bed dresser, they collide with his half-desk, which is snuggly wedged between their two beds. When Andrews fully opens the drawers of his dresser, they barely fit within the path of the in-swinging door. Almost certainly, the door would hit him if it opened suddenly while he stands in front of the dresser. Around 60 sophomores had to adjust to new Bundy doubles like these this year, or, as Quinn Brown ’24 calls them,“forced doubles.”

How then, did Brown, Andrews, Hoke and nearly 60 others come to be playing Tetris with their dorm room furniture in the first place? The answer: over enrollment, COVID-19 housing requirements and far fewer students studying abroad.

“Hamilton has more students, and more students on campus than it ever has in its history right now,” said Travis Hill, Associate Dean of Students. In a typical Fall semester, Hamilton College houses between 1880 and 1890 students on campus. However, in Fall 2021, Hamilton welcomed 1976 students to its physical campus, an increase of about 100 students. 533 students accepted their offers to join Hamilton’s Class of 2025, 60 more than admissions’ goal of welcoming 475 to 480 new first-years each year. Fewer students studying abroad in Fall 2021 (76 compared to the norm of 120 to 130) also contributes to the overcrowded campus this semester.

The over enrollment, study abroad numbers and COVID-19 requirements necessitated two significant changes to housing on campus. In Bundy, Residential Life placed 60 sophomore students, like Andrews, Hoke and Brown, in double rooms that in years past housed only one student. In some Bundy wings with new doubles, 16 students share two locking bathrooms, each with one shower and one toilet.

In addition to adding new Bundy doubles, Hamilton constructed two temporary buildings, Glenview A and B in Summer 2020. These two new buildings consumed some 60 parking spots on the dark side — exacerbating the scarcity of parking on campus in Fall 2021. The removal of these spots, coupled with the unusual amount of students studying on campus at Hamilton in Fall 2021, resulted in a shortage of non-North Lot parking.

Students expressed their discontent over lack of parking availability in Student Assembly’s public comment section and Frank Coots, Director of Campus Safety, engaged with the Student Assembly on the issue. On Oct. 25, Coots announced that additional student parking would be added both at the Old Tennis Courts near the Field House and at the parking lot closest to Babbit Pavillion. In an email to the entire College, Coots added that “convenient student parking will continue to be a challenge and I will persist at minimizing the stress the limited parking causes.”

Over Enrollment: 2021–2022

533 new students matriculated at Hamilton in the Fall 2021 semester, exceeding enrollment expectations of 475 to 480 by about 60 students. Simultaneously, lower than normal off-campus study numbers exacerbate the housing squeeze.

Monica Inzer, Vice President for Enrollment Management, told

The Spectator

that this over-enrollment was a result of the fact that “our yield, that’s the percent of admits who chose us, went from 34.3% last year to 40.4% this year.” She added, “while this is a good problem to have, that so many students want to be at Hamilton, we certainly didn’t see that coming.”

“This was not intentional” said Inzer. “Our target was 475 to 480 fall first-years and 45 January first-years. In addition to the large fall class, at this point we have 67 Jans joining us next semester. Inzer also said “the data and models we use to predict yield and enrollment are quite reliable. That wasn’t the case this year.”

When planning housing for the 2021–2022 academic year, Travis Hill stated “because the numbers were so high in the incoming first-year class and the study abroad numbers were so low, we [the Enrollment Management Committee] just knew we were in a spot.” So, Travis Hill, Residential Life and Facilities Management met to explore housing options for this semester, including Glenview A and B. While Glenview has remained on campus during the Fall 2021 semester, it was originally constructed to cope with the COVID-19 housing guidelines in 2020–2021.

The Origins of Glenview

Hamilton’s newest dormitories, Glenview A and B, stand in the corner of the Root Parking Lot on the dark side of campus. Hamilton constructed these buildings for Fall 2020, and they currently house 72 first-year students. Both buildings will remain on campus during the 2022–2023 academic year, said Tanith Sherman, Assistant Director of Residential Life.

Sherman explained that “Glenview was built as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects it had on our community.” She elaborated on these effects, namely that many triples and quads without private bathrooms could not be used as such due to COVID-19 “de-densifying” guidelines.

These “de-densifying” guidelines stipulated that, for example, Hamilton could not use quads to house four students unless they had a private bathroom. Consequently, in Dunham residence hall, all quads had to be converted to doubles.

An additional challenge Residential Life faced in 2020–2021 was the negligible amount of students in study abroad programs due to COVID-19. In Spring 2021, 15 students studied abroad, compared to 180 to 200 students in pre-pandemic years, said Carolyn North, Assistant Dean of Off-Campus Study. Given these challenges, “to be sure we had enough beds for all of our students, we made many changes to our housing, including adding the Glenview buildings,” said Sherman.

When Brin Rockett ’24 arrived at Glenview in Fall 2020, “it felt like there were a lot of things that they didn’t think about when we moved in,” she told

The Spectator.

Upon her arrival, all lights in Rockett’s room used motion detectors and “if you moved around at all in the night, if you shifted in bed, the lights would just turn on.” Rockett and others then realized that “we could tape over the motion sensor so that it wouldn’t turn on, but that still meant that after [a couple] minutes the lights would just turn off.”

Rockett mentioned additional problems, such as flooding through the air conditioning units, and a period of about five days when the shower steam frequently triggered the fire alarms, causing her to miss Zoom classes.

To resolve these issues, Rockett and her fellow Glenview residents would reach out to their Residential Advisor requesting a work order. Facilities Management usually fixed the problems quickly, said Rockett.

Though the Glenviews provide the needed housing space for students into the 2021–2022 academic year, the solution continues to invoke some bemusement from its residents. Mady Schiro ’25, a current resident of Glenview, said “it’s pretty far from everything, so that’s a bit of a hassle,” and that “people see the other dorms and they’re nice and they’re old and they’re beautiful and then they come to Glenview and it’s not as nice.” She highlighted that two perks are free laundry and air conditioning. As to whether her current housing has impacted her quality of life, she said, “other than the distance, it’s not too impactful.”

Glenview resident Mya Burns ’24 said “I feel like Glenview gets a lot of hate, but we have free laundry and air conditioning…but there are several cons, first of all the location, the second thing is the housing itself, it is temporary housing. It’s not a true building on campus.”

The Origin of New Bundy Doubles: 2020–2021

Despite the 72 added beds in Glenview A and B, Hamilton added 60 beds to the Bundy Residence Halls last year by placing two occupants into a room that had housed only one student the previous year.

Hill, who sits on the Enrollment Management Committee as a representative for Residential Life, said that compared to the current school year, the Bundy doubles were “used a lot less” during the 2020–2021 school year. Since virtual classes allowed some students to study remotely, the college did not need to make full use of the Bundy doubles.

Bundy was chosen as the place to add a majority of the new doubles during the 2020–21 academic year “because of the size of the rooms, and the bathroom and laundry ratios,” explained Sherman. According to Sherman and Hill, Bundy singles are the largest singles on campus.

However, Brown ’24 has found living with the bathroom-to-student ratio difficult, explaining, “our whole floor is forced doubles meaning we have 16 people sharing two bathrooms, which means at [peak] hours like before class in the morning it is nearly impossible to get into the bathrooms just to brush your teeth.”

Hill added that compared to many other single rooms on campus that Facilities Management and Residential Life considered, “Bundy’s rooms are pretty rectangular, which is a big advantage if you’re going to take a square footage and try to use it differently.”

Finally, Hill noted that Bundy was a residence hall where “we had the ability to do it all in one location” and that because of the sheer volume of needed beds, “it was much simpler to do it [in Bundy].” In summary, “the reason we did the Bundy double solution was because we had already pretty much exhausted everything else that was viable,” said Hill.

Student Experiences in Bundy Doubles: 2021–2022

Andrews, who lives in Bundy with his roommate Hoke, explained that “it’s been really tight, and both being on [men’s soccer] we do not have a lot of room for our equipment, luckily we have the locker room.”

Echoing Brown’s sentiments, another concern for Andrews was that there are 16 people in the hall and two private bathrooms, each with one toilet and one shower.

Hoke said “I’ve been able to adjust to the forced double pretty well as this semester has gone on. The room itself is small and without much storage space, but it’s manageable.” Due to the layout of their room, Hoke’s under the bed dressers do not fully open since they collide with a half-desk in between the two beds. The open drawers of the full dresser, at the foot of Andrews’ bed, barely fit outside the radius of the opening door. If the door opens while Andrews uses the dresser, the door will collide with him. One closet is available for both Andrews and Hoke to use.

However, not all students fully adjusted to the Bundy doubles. Stella O’Brien ’24 lived in a Bundy double for only two and a half weeks this year before she and her roommate promptly requested a room change. “Even though my roommate and I are really good friends, it was still really difficult to live together in a space that was designed for one person to live by themselves,” O’Brien told

The Spectator.

For O’Brien, the closure of the Bundy Dining Hall due to staff shortages exacerbated the inconvenience caused by her cramped living situation. While O’Brien’s room change request was approved quickly, Residential Life did not accept Hoke and Andrews’ request to change rooms. “The room is simply not big enough for two people,” said Brown.

In regards to whether students had expressed their discontent with Bundy doubles, Sherman told

The Spectator

that “we have heard from students in the Bundy Buildings who are unhappy with the size of the doubles there. Unfortunately because many students were in…(quads with only two people, etc.), [during the 2020–21 academic year] moving into a very standard double room can be a big adjustment.”

Sherman added that “we have done a lot of work to improve the common room space in those buildings to offer more space for students to study and socialize, and have worked with students to help them arrange their rooms as best we can.”

Of the Bundy doubles, Hill said that “I get the frustration, I don’t begrudge the students and I know that Residential Life and Facilities Management have tried very hard to create strategies for organizing the room and getting the right combination of furniture to make it as manageable as possible” In the face of these challenges, Sherman said that the College “did the best that anyone could have done.”

The Future of Glenview and Bundy

Study abroad numbers in Spring 2022 will likely dictate the future of the new Bundy doubles. Inzer speculated that “it seems that that there’s pent up demand for off-campus study this next spring semester…so we think that even though we’re over by 80 to 100 [students] this Fall, we could be under by 80 in the spring…but we won’t know until we see what happens with off-campus study.” Sherman echoed this statement. She told

The Spectator

that the Bundy doubles will exist as long as needed, and that the hope is that more students will study abroad and that those new numbers will allow the College to remove some, or all of the converted Bundy doubles. She also confirmed that Glenview would remain on campus through the 2022–23 academic year.

In typical years before COVID-19, 120 to 130 students study abroad in the Fall and 180 to 200 study abroad in the Spring. As of Oct. 27, 2021, 188 students submitted leave of absence forms with the intent to study abroad for Spring 2022. These numbers are subject to change due to the evolving pandemic conditions worldwide, said North.

The higher-than-expected number of students on campus could persist at least until the Class of 2025 graduates, though admissions is working to reduce this number. Inzer explained to

The Spectator

that admitting far fewer students in the Class of 2026, with the goal of immediately reducing on-campus student population to normal levels, is not a solution. Per Inzer’s explanation: though admitting a far smaller Class of 2026 would immediately bring Hamilton’s student population back to normal, it would cause a cycle of wide swings in class size in the future. For example, after the Class of 2025 graduates, admissions would then need to admit another Class of around 533 students to maintain a level student population, followed by another smaller class and so on. Instead, admissions has reduced the number of accepted transfers in the Fall 2021 from 16 to four and plans to not admit any transfers in Spring 2022. Admissions will also make smaller changes to enrollment targets over time in order to “get some air out of that balloon for the campus,” said Inzer.

According to Hill and Inzer, at the moment Hamilton has no plans to build new housing in the near future. Hill detailed that in the past, as Hamilton has converted significant amounts of faculty rental housing into student housing to account for unexpectedly large classes, though a class has never been as large as the Class of 2025. As a result of past housing changes, Hamilton had maximized its housing even before the onset of COVID-19.

Inzer and Sherman both confirmed that the College is currently working on a study of campus housing, which will evaluate how appropriate Hamilton’s housing is for students of each class year. Sherman said that “Residential Life as an office would love if the results of that [study] were renovations or a new residence hall.” However, Inzer explained that the college is unlikely to expand its size and thus its housing because “if we were to intentionally grow the college, we’d staff up and build more housing, and then there’s no real revenue there” and that “we don’t want to inadvertently or arbitrarily change the character of the place…students choose us because of our size and the experience comes with that.”

Having already maximized housing prior to COVID-19, Hamilton faced a housing squeeze brought on by unexpected challenges. It may take multiple years for housing to return to pre-2020 conditions, but in the meantime, difficulties persist for Hamilton’s underclassmen students. As new Bundy double resident, John Sheets ’24, said of his housing, “to say it’s cramped is an understatement; I feel like a sardine in a can.”