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Students across the country are moving into their dorm rooms for the upcoming school year -- well, most of them, anyway. Several colleges have kicked off the semester with housing headaches ranging from office-like temporary housing to safety issues.
One hundred and fifty students at Clark Atlanta University were without a place to stay Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The university told students that room assignments would be complete for all students who met enrollment requirements by Wednesday afternoon, but it was unclear how many students were still dormless on Thursday.
At the University of North Carolina at Asheville, dorms previously deemed “uninhabitable” by the state were reopened Friday night after the university reached an agreement with the North Carolina Department of Insurance, the Citizen Times reported. The department had closed five newly constructed dorms on Thursday citing safety concerns including potentially blocked stairways, attic spaces without sprinklers and wood construction as part of firewalls, leaving 300 students unable to move in. On Saturday, the university sent out an email to students and staff with the terms of the agreement. In cooperation with the Asheville fire department, a fire truck will be stationed near the residence halls and a “24-hour fire watch” began at 11 p.m. Friday. The university will also install sprinklers and reposition the valves on the water supply pipes in the stairwells.
The Purdue Exponent, Purdue University's student newspaper, posted photos of temporary dorm rooms set up in basements and study lounges around Purdue's campus. The photos were republished by ABC 6 Action News. The rooms were described as “something out of a prison setup, or a boot camp.” The university told ABC that the temporary setup was due to overenrollment of admitted students and that the students living there will be the first to be reassigned.
