Question about housing at UA

BAMAMom2Be
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 14:55:10 +0000

Turns out this room at The Highlands is now apparently the smallest double room on campus, at least according to the dimensions posted on the floor plans on the housing website.

The smallest room advertised as a double is in Blount, at 11x13 (143 square feet), with 2 closets that are each 3 x 2-9, or 8.25 square feet each. (The smallest closet I could find was in Tutwiler, with 7.5 square feet for each person.)

The Highlands room is 14x10 (140 square feet) with a single closet of 2x5 (10 square feet). Can you imagine two girls in a room, each with only 5 square feet of closet space? It’s not gonna be pretty!

I’m sure the parents of all the girls who are being squeezed into single rooms with upperclassmen are not at all happy about the situation. I’m sure they’re upset with the lack of space, plus they’re likely concerned that an upset/angry upperclassman is going to take the situation out on their daughter and make her life miserable. If we can’t find a way out of this, I know my daughter will try to make the best of a rotten situation, but I don’t know if her roommate will do the same for her.

This close to school, I don’t imagine there will be many students trying to cancel their housing contract. So we may be stuck with this, unless I can find a legal loophole to use to get some better options. (Like UA fully funding a room for her at The Lofts or The Bluffs or something.) And if I find one, I’ll be sharing that loophole so anyone else stuck like this can try to get their child out of the situation.

I know some universities are known for doing this kind of thing, but just because they think they have the power and the legal right to do it, doesn’t make it the right thing to do for their students.

I’m waiting for a call back from Tuscaloosa’s Inspections and Planning Department to see if there is a local code specifying minimum size requirements for double dorm rooms for building built as recently as The Highlands was. I also have an attorney (my sister’s boss, a graduate of UA Law School) reading over the housing contract with a fine-tooth comb to see if there are any legal loopholes we can use to force the school to offer a better solution than cramming two students into a room advertised as a single.

If we end up not being able to get things changed, we will accept the final situation with as much grace as humanly possible, and be as nice as possible to the hopefully temporary roommate and her family. But in the meantime, I’m going to do everything I can to get a better solution for my daughter and her roommate.