Upgrade UO housing.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Last year the University of Oregon opened its first new on-campus student housing complex since 1963 - the Living-Learning Center, with 225-square-foot rooms and spacious common areas. Residents of the UO's other dormitories, where rooms average 150 square feet in size, looked at the LLC and said, "I want that." They won't get it - but their younger siblings might if the UO is allowed to move forward with a plan to replace and renovate its entire stock of on-campus housing.

The UO's current residence halls no longer make the grade. The rooms are cramped to the point of inducing claustrophobia, and poor lighting often makes them seem even smaller. There's no easy way to hang shelves on the concrete-block walls. There's not enough room for the electronic gear that students bring to school, and not enough electrical outlets for those few devices that can be accommodated. The built-in desks date from an era before every student's work space needed to accommodate a keyboard and a monitor. UO housing officials can find takers for some rooms only by converting double rooms into singles, effectively doubling their size.

Inadequate dorms place the UO at a disadvantage in competition for students, particularly the brightest applicants who are able to choose among several universities. In a survey conducted last spring, half of prospective, current and former residents of UO dormitories said that housing options affected their decisions about where to enroll. In evaluating those options, the size of dorm rooms was cited as the most important factor, with location rated as a distant second.

An improved housing stock would do more than cater to students' rising expectations. Better dorms would make the UO a better university. Most learning takes place outside the classroom, and student housing should be designed to encourage the interactions and activities that allow that learning to occur. That's the concept behind the Living Learning Center - students not only get more living space, they get better learning spaces as well, and in the long run the latter are more important.

A more comfortable and stimulating environment in the dormitories would cause more students to decide to live on campus and also encourage more to stay in the dorms beyond their freshman year. Living in a dorm is an important part of the college experience - it helps establish social networks that can last a lifetime, and binds students more closely to their school. Those benefits won't be obtained if the UO's residence halls are so dreary that students want to move out as soon as they can, or avoid dorm life altogether.

The UO's 10-year plan to replace, renovate and expand its on-campus housing stock will be presented next week to the state Board of Higher Education. Public comment then will be invited.

The first phase of the project would cost between $40 million and $60 million. The UO would borrow they money and repay it with students' dorm fees, anticipating that larger, better-quality rooms would result in an increase in student demand. The plan's financing also would be lubricated by funds from the sale of the off-campus Westmoreland student housing complex.

The success of the Living-Learning Center suggests that the UO's expectations of student demand are reasonable. As the plan undergoes the necessary comment and review, the most common question is likely to be, "Is there any way to move forward any faster?"