T HE F LAT H AT
Vol. 112, Iss. 10 | Tuesday, October 24, 2022
The Weekly Student Newspaper
of The College of William and Mary
flathatnews.com | @theflathat
Residence Life announces changes to on-campus housing for 2023-24 Students express frustration at shortage of accessible, affordable off-campus housing LULU DAWES // FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Closed for Renovation
Demolishing in Dec ’23
Becoming Freshmen Dorms
Wednesday, Oct. 12, Residence Life revealed changes to next year’s housing policy, including a reduction in available rooms. Following last year’s developments and challenges with housing, including an unprecedented waitlist of 600 upperclassmen attempting to live on campus and the announcement of the Housing and Dining Comprehensive Facilities Plan, finding housing has become a contentious issue for students and in local politics. In the email, Residence Life announced the one-year closure of Monroe Hall for renovations, the switch of Dawson and Dupont Hall to freshmen housing and the suspension of same-room sign up. For the 2023-24 school year, the housing capacity will fall from 4838 to 4469. “The number of beds available for rising Juniors and Seniors will fluctuate from year to year as we work toward completion of the Housing and Dining Comprehensive Facilities Plan,” Director of Housing & Residence Life Harriet Kandell wrote to The Flat Hat. “We anticipate that Fall 2023 and Fall 2024 will be the most challenging. As we open new buildings in Fall 2025, we will have much more space available.” Residence Life anticipates having 1000 beds spaces reserved for upperclassmen; this number, according to Kandell, includes spaces in locations “such as special interest housing in Language Houses, Mosaic, Africana House, Fraternity & Sorority Houses and Resident Assistants.” Kandell confirmed that Residence Life is expecting another large waitlist for this year. “Each year we anticipate and are prepared for a waiting list for housing,” Kandell said. “With the closure of Yates and Monroe Halls for the 23-24 academic year we anticipate a housing wait list of potentially 400-500 students. While we cannot guarantee that all students initially placed on the housing wait list will eventually be offered on-campus housing, in past years we have been able to house all students who actively remained on the wait list, including Fall 2022. As of now for this fall we currently have around 160 undergraduate vacancies throughout campus. In Spring 2022 we had a waiting list of over 600 students. All of those students
were able to secure housing for this year.” As upperclassmen search for offcampus housing, many have spoken out against the general lack of housing options in Williamsburg, and even less that are affordable and within walking distance. Giselle Boudreaux ’25 received her very last choice for a dorm last year, and did not want to gamble her choice by staying on campus this year, especially as she heard most housing options are leased in the
“
I didn’t think too many
people had started getting
housed, and I thought there’d still be a lot of options, but I was wrong about that. And pretty much everything now that’s close to campus or affordable is taken. - Sydney Clayton ʼ25
”
fall and room selection takes place in the spring. She began looking for off-campus housing in mid-September and started asking upperclassmen if they knew any options. “In my opinion, it seems very early to be looking that early,” Boudreaux said. Boudreaux was able to eventually secure an apartment within walking distance, though she says the process to sign the lease and pay the deposit was very fast-paced. Boudreaux does not have a car, so being near campus was vital. “And so they got back to me eventually and basically all of the units were snapped up within like a week, a week and a half, and we got the very, very last one,” she said. “So
it was very hectic. It was fast, fast paced.” Josh Shankman ’23 was hoping to find on-campus housing last year with his three other suitemates — two of whom were planning to study abroad — when they found out they were on the waitlist. “We had never heard of them running out of space,” Shankman said. “...They had also increased their freshman class size and everything, so there was a lot of frustration, particularly with communication, because we felt like if we had known that… it might be difficult to get on-campus, we would have looked at our alternatives a little differently,” Shankman was one of the last people able to sign a lease for one of the remaining doubles in Midtown Row. “We ended up finding out at the time pretty quickly that there were like five doubles left in the entirety of the Midtown complex,” Shankman said. “And that was the, you know, no quads, no triples, just five doubles and a few singles. And so it was, you know, pretty scrambled of, ‘hey, everybody, call your parents, figure out if you can do this. Like, here’s how much it’ll be. You would need to know in the next two days whether we’re going to do this or not, because otherwise we’re going to not be able to sign because it’ll close up.’” While Midtown Row was developed with the intent to be student housing, its higher prices and further distance from the College do serve as a barrier for some students. Still, Midtown Row’s 600+ housing capacity makes it the largest apartment complex in close proximity to the College. “So the standard pricing for Midtown, I believe in a quad is around $900 a month, which I think is typical of what you’ll find students paying if they’re living off campus in a house or a little farther away,” Shankman said. “The doubles at midtown are $1300 a month, so I’m paying an extra $400 a month to live, as opposed to what my option would have been had I known we weren’t going to live on campus, which kind of adds up over the course of a 12 month lease.” Sydney Clayton ’25 only began looking for housing at the start of October, and her and her future roommates have not been able to secure any housing yet.
JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT
See HOUSING page 8
FLAT HAT NEWS BRIEF Campus initiates shelter in place following unknown social media threat, suspect placed in custody Saturday, Oct. 22, the College of William and Mary initiated a campus-wide shelter in place after a social media threat was allegedly brought to the attention of WMPD, though details regarding the threat are still unclear. “As you know, an anonymous threat to campus was made on social media today and the university initiated a lockdown,” the statement sent to the campus at 4:46PM read. “This action was taken out of an abundance of caution while William & Mary and Williamsburg Police attempted to locate a person of interest. Once police had the individual in custody, the lockdown was lifted. The safety of our campus community is a top priority, and we are grateful this incident was resolved safely and without injury.” At 2:44PM, students, parents, and the greater Williamsburg community were alerted through an emergency notification system that there was an unknown issue on campus. The emergency alarm was also turned on and could be heard throughout the College. “Anonymous threat to campus,” the first message read. “Seek shelter immediately inside a secure location. More info to follow.” Panic began to spread through campus during this time, with on-campus locations, such as the Sadler Center and Earl Gregg Swem Library, entering a shelter in place. Events Assistant Meriem Hcini ‘23 was working in Sadler when the first alert was sent. READ MORE AT FLATHATNEWS.COM LULU DAWES / FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ELECTION
Students mobilize for the City of Williamsburg election Rise in student involvement,“Our Williamsburg” forms to advocate for student voices LULU DAWES FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
As the Nov. 8 election date nears, the City of Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary students prepare for two of the five city council seats to be up for grabs on the ballot. Despite no students running for the open seats, this election has seen a wave of student engagement. Current city council members up for re-election and on the ballot are Mayor Doug Pons and Council Member Ted Maslin MBA ’80. Rick Overy and William and Mary Law School Professor Stacy Kern-Scheerer are running alongside them. Caleb Rogers ’20 ran in 2020 and is halfway through serving his four-year term. Rogers says that in the last 14 years where students have been allowed to vote, there has been historically less participation when no College student is running. Since 2010, the last three times a student at the
College has run, they have been elected. “In all of those years, the years in which there has been a student candidate, there’s been a lot of participation,” Rogers said. “When there hasn’t been, there hasn’t been that same level of engagement. So looking at this year, I think it’s safe to say this is the most engagement the student body has been getting for a council race that does not involve a student, which really is historic.” Candidates may have known this year would be different when an unprecedented high number of students attended a Sept. 12 off-campus debate. As shown in the debate and following student interactions, much of the student vote revolves around housing — a high-stress issue at the College. As the College undergoes major housing renovations, demolishes many on-campus residence halls and accepts a higher number of freshmen, upperclassmen have spoken
out against the shortage of reasonably priced off-campus housing opportunities. Along with contentious town and gown relations — many of which were brought up at the council’s moratorium vote last year — some students feel unwelcome when they do find off-campus housing. “With housing, you get finished with sophomore year and you suddenly have the ability to live off campus if you want… So then they start looking at the off-campus options and they’ve probably found that there aren’t a ton of options, or when there are they can be expensive,” Rogers said. “So Council has been excited about Midtown Row and open to and appreciative of students who are living in our neighborhoods. That has also led to, as a lot of students know, some consternation in the neighborhoods where you can have student houses living next to long-time owners.” Our Williamsburg is a new
student-run organization on campus, which advocates for students to register to vote in Williamsburg and to get involved with local issues that affect them. With the immediate focus on the council election, Our Williamsburg has endorsed Rick Overy and Stacy Kern-Scheerer. “We met with all the candidates and we chose two that we deemed most studentfriendly based on a couple of issues and so now we’re advocating for those candidates and for people to get registered to vote,” Matthew Berthoud ’25, one of the founders of Our Williamsburg, said. The idea for the organization began when Berthoud and cofounder Charlie Unice ’25 began looking for off-campus housing. “We’re looking for places to live next year, and we realized that the housing market is kind of tough around here, and there’s a lot of reasons for that,” Berthoud said. “There’s just sort of a limited supply.due to the threeREAD MORE AT FLATHATNEWS.COM
Inside Opinions
INDEX News Opinions Variety Sports News
2 3-4 5-6 7 8
Importance of using your voice as a student
Ted Maslin argues students should utilize their voice to advocate for the changes they want to see in Williamsburg page 3
Inside Variety
Thousands of miles from home
Freeman Fellows embark on summer-long immersion program in Asia page 5
Inside Sports
Volleyball finishes off Hampton in Kaplan
Tribe improves to 11-7 after weekend game, now above .500 in CAA play page 7