Yes - I’m saying that would be an issue with any plan to split I-House residents between I-House and Woodlawn. If you move half the houses and keep the other half in I-House, you don’t solve the problem; you just end up with brand-new houses in both dorms that have zero upperclass students, instead of a bunch of these houses in one dorm. If you try to split individual houses up between the two dorms, you get the issues I outlined above.
This is why the most likely outcome (IMHO) is the College moving I-House houses to Woodlawn and doing something else with the building, as you suggest. Though that still raises a question. I-House is five houses, Stony is one, Vue is one, for a total of seven. Woodlawn’s supposed to have eleven. So where do the other four houses come from? No other dorm has exactly four houses, so I’m having trouble thinking of an obvious answer.
Maybe you could move some houses from North, South, and Max, and divvy up their rooms between other houses in the megadorms? But that would run counter to the house system as the university envisions it - producing houses way over 100. Which creates a whole bunch of challenges in building and maintaining community, or even some semblance of order.
I honestly believe this fits the cliche: be careful what you wish for. A megadorm gives the College lot of beds to relieve the overcrowding. But it just may completely wreck the existing house culture for a couple of years. I wonder whether Dean Boyer has really thought through the logistics.
I maintain I-House 400+ beds are too valuable for College to give them up, especially if there is no new dorm on horizon and Max P may need to be partially shut down to repair its structural problems. I think I-House will continue as an undergrad dorm. As @JBStillFlying said up thread, that means a shorter walk to WRC dining hall for I-House residents. Hey, they have been going to Cathey in the last few years. Halving the distance and time to food should be an improvement
The good news is that in 3 to 4 years, everything should be fixed. By then there will be enough upperclassman in I-House and WRC to re-establish the proper upperclassman/first years balance. But I won’t envy Class of 2024 (or even Class of 2025) for their dorm experience.
^ Anytime you have a major move to a new dorm - and rename the houses to boot - you probably set house culture back a bit. IIRC, some of the houses going over to North were either temporary (existing during the transitional period between closing Pierce and opening up North) or poorly functioning - both these types were “retired”. North had all new house names so it was like they started over with the house system when the dorm opened up. So yeah, it’ll take a while for houses to get established and gelled in that case.
WRC might be a tad different. Assuming that they’d try to move the five from I-House as well as Stoney and Vue53 over to WRC and keep them intact (ie no changes, not even a name change, except of course for Vue53 which should be the one renamed as Nondorf House LOL), the remaining four would presumably consist of existing students who opted to go over there and seed the place as well as new incoming students assigned. Sorry if this was answered already and I didn’t read it: but if those “seeders” were otherwise planning to move off campus but for some reason opted to move to WRC instead, then what would be the negative impact to their original house? Perhaps a bit of confusion during the degree ceremonies as they try to figure out which house to assign the student to . . . but other than that - what else? When a person leaves, my guess is that they don’t have much interaction with the house going forward anyway. So the trick would be to convince the “right ones” - ie the ones planning to move off campus - to actually stay on campus (just in a different dorm). From what I’m reading here, current conditions are a tad over-crowed in the existing dorms, houses are too big, etc. That has to have a negative impact on house culture as well. Not sure how to entice some to leave but perhaps just allowing priority choice of rooms might be the solution. You seed, you get priority. So that might be one option.
The other solution would be to allow those four houses to grow organically - assign them when enough people opt to move into the space but not beforehand and not forced. In other words, if there are enough upper div students willing to switch for Fall 2020 to create no more than two additional houses, that’s what you create. Space at the remaining dorms might still be a tad cramped because people aren’t willing to leave their house, but at least there is minimum impact on existing house culture and the least amount of disruption. Over time - probably just a few years - the space situation would equilibrate as kids graduate and new kids assigned to fill the space.
There is already a de facto Booth dorm. http://www.parkmillenniumchicago.com/
the buildings in that area has underground walkways to Metra and are walking distance to Gleacher.
Agree that shutting Snitchcock (and maybe Max…I did not know about the issues listed by Dun) is logical, but likely to create a furor among current students and alumni. Executing these movements would create two logical clusters of undergrad housing–north and south as described above by JB. Also, agree that change is coming for IH.
What I don’t understand is why a comprehensive plan does not exist (or does it?) that all can see and access. Or at least a plan to communicate a plan? I don’t know if it is “better” to sort all this out before the next app cycle, but definitely better before the end of this school year.
I have not been back to Hyde Park since the start of Woodlawn construction. I hope it turns out good. There was discussion previously about the cost / bed at Woodlawn being substantially less than North. I don’t think this is a problem necessarily for Woodlawn, as perhaps North is a little overpriced in the effort to create another architecural icon. I guess we’ll see.
The administration generally operates on the principle that announcing stuff far in advance gives malcontents time to organize against it and lets those affected respond - not always the way you’d like. So communication with students about their decision-making occurs only when they’ve reached a final decision and made most of the necessary arrangements.
You see this at the macro level (with stuff like WRC being announced shortly before they broke ground, minimal disclosure re: the university’s operating budget, etc.) and at the micro level (sudden closure of various student cafes, one of last year’s snow days being communicated the previous afternoon, meetings to address complaints from a house held at 2 PM on a Monday - when people have, you know, classes)
I’d bet good money there is a plan, but announcing something like the closure of I-House far in advance is risky. Maybe you see another mobilization to save the dorm, maybe the bulk of the returning students make plans to move off campus, and so on.
^ Agree. They wouldn’t want to be stymied yet again. But it might be different this time if I-House has been operating 100% as an undergraduate dorm for the past several years, with no “international” connection over and above any other undergraduate dorm. The global economy and increased international presence at top schools everywhere might have done more to seal I-House’s fate than any proactive university strategy. One additional thought is that they haven’t done anything with Breckinridge next door, as @85bears46 pointed out upthread. It’s just sitting there empty. So it’s quite possible that they have a plan for that entire space but are waiting for WRC to be up and the houses moved over there before announcing anything specific. Especially if it will involve a ton of new construction.
@FStratford at #43 - those are condos. Are you saying Booth students are purchasing or leasing from owners? And are Booth students residing in HP at all these days?
Conceivably, University can demolish Breckinridge and then build a high rise that can sleep 100. And the building can have a dinning room at the ground level. That is the costly option.
The cheapo option is to just renovate Breckinridge to upgrade it to modern dorm standard. Breckinridge actually has a fairly large courtyard. Add an extension there and turn it into a dinning room.
Or even keep everything as is. Upgrade the bathrooms. Tear down a couple of walls and turn a few rooms on first floor into a dinning room. That won’t cost $50 million.
Then the I-House/Breckinridge complex will have six houses and its dinning room. Problem solved.
Agree with @kaukauna that Administration should communicate its plan regarding WRC to the public. Maybe not now but probably no later than May 15th 2020. I understand the reluctance of Administration to say anything before May 1st that may affect acceptance and yield. Still, as this whole thread demonstrates, this is going to be an upheaval in house culture in the entire dorm system. You have to adjust incoming students expectation instead of springing the surprise on them at 2020 O-week.
Whatever else they do, they need to keep their cotton-pickin’ hands off BJ and Snitchcock. Rationalization of use of assets is fine, but history, tradition and success on the ground are irreplaceable. Rationalism in the functional sense of that term can be carried too far and morph into monolithism. Those quirky places have bottled and dispensed the UChicago elixir for generations. Perhaps that’s in part because their very physical features express something of the idiosyncratic nature of the College itself and of the kids who come to it.
The administration ought not to be thinking about this purely as a matter of what can be gotten away with without offending alumni (even if that is a reasonable consideration!). An astute analysis ought to balance these narrow operational efficiencies against the downside of dismantling institutions that have been definitional for the College during much of its history. These places still have their attractions after all these years. Haven’t I been reading on this forum that one of the reasons Chicago has gotten hot is the Hogwarts factor? If that’s what it takes…
Don’t worry @marlowe1. They won’t touch BJ and Snitchcock. As @DunBoyer succinctly put it, if they do, they will have no material for tour groups and pamphlets. How can they tear down the dorm of Bernie, Sagan and Cronin?
I sincerely believe in five years or less, everything will be sorted out. But it is also somewhat disingenuous not to let incoming students know what is going to happen for the dorm culture in the 2020-2021 academic year. Maybe Admission will just play up the shiny new dorm and shove the house system under the bed for next year.
I’m increasingly convinced as well that they probably won’t touch either remaining old dorm, as both north and south campus residential clusters would have a variety of options, room types, styles etc. No sense upsetting the apple cart or giving up beds.
Intrigued by @85bears46 suggestion of an eastern campus cluster: a new hall replacing Breckinridge, and the old I-House, with dining (and workout room, please) to provide the needed amenities for comfortable living. How many could they fit if they tore down Breck and replaced with a newer high-rise - 800? That would be combined capacity of about 1200-1300 from the two dorms?
Edit: whoops you answered that - only 100? That won’t work for a Campus East Cluster, sadly. But it might work for grad students.
@85bears46: assuming an on-time opening of Sept. 2020, WRC will be part of the room lottery in the spring. Best guess is that any houses going over there will be informed at or shortly before that time. Most likely the RA’s will be the ones communicating the process, just like any room lottery. Hopefully there will be walk-throughs or floor plans available at that time. I’d look to how they handled this for North to give some indication of how it’ll proceed.
Houses will be announced in a press release, most likely - just like for North.
@JBStillFlying Those are leased condos, so rentals. Bothies actually refer to it as the “Booth Dorm”. I am told that the the building managers added “case study rooms” and “meeting rooms” just for Boothies too. The other buildings around it get the overflow or bargain hunting renters. Majority of Boothies live in the South Loop or Mag Mile because of access to the City, Metra and Gleacher. A few clusters in Lincoln Park, Gold Coast. There are people in HP but even those move out of HP on their second years because “Thursday Night Drinking Club” social events are in the city
@JBStillFlying I may be too conservative in estimating the number of beds in a high rise Breckinridge.
I compare the lot size of Breckinridge versus Sophy Hotel. Breckinridge lot is around double the size of Sophy Hotel. Sophy Hotel has 98 rooms in a seven story building (but hotel rooms are on six floors). Now it is billed as luxury hotel with at least 10 suites. So if Sophy is designed with a room only configuration, it can have 103 rooms.
Now picture a high rise twice as tall and 50% bigger in size at least. Bear in the mind the west tower of WRC is 15 story high. So a 12 story Breckinridge is possible.
A normal Sophy room has its own bathroom and obviously a Breckinridge high rise dorm will not have that luxury. That means for a size of Sophy Hotel, a Breckinridge high rise can squeeze in even more dorm rooms per floor. Let’s assume 10% more.
So here is the math:
(98 + 5) x 1.1 x 2 x 1.5 = 339.9 or around 340 rooms. If I assume one half are singles and the rest are doubles, the high rise Breckinridge may accommodate 510 beds. @JBStillFlying Together with I-House there can be an East Campus complex as you envisage.
Of course, there may be funding question and the immediate neighbors’ objection to construction of a tall high rise (although right next to I-House there are already two high rises). But an East Campus is not out of question.
^ Well, the real estate that I-House is sitting on seems larger than WRC’s, based on a visual inspection. Wondering if they could eliminate some of the office space there and add extra rooms. making it an even 1,000 at East Campus. Would the dining hall be the ground level of the Breck high rise?
IMHO, the transportation options are great on the east side of HP. You have Metra, the #6, and the #28, just to name a few. Anything close to LSD is going to have easy access to the downtown.
I am neither an architect nor a civil engineer. So I have no idea whether it is even structurally feasible to put a high rise there. But let’s assume it can be done and somehow some rich old Breckinridge alums are willing to fork over the big bucks, I can envisage a Breckinridge Hall like this one at 53rd and Cornell with the first few levels being dinning hall, study rooms and gym and actual dorms above it.
Of course the Breckinridge Hall doesn’t need 176 parking spaces. Nor does it need a swimming pool for the students. So I think a 15 to 18 story high rise can accommodate 350 rooms. Together with some renovation of I-House, an 1,000 room East Campus is doable. And I have inspected the UGo shuttle map. There is for sure a shuttle that stops at I-House and brings students to Levi 24/7.
^ Well heck, if the UGo Shuttle is already there . . .
Totally made sense to build WRC where they did. But it’s clear that there is a potential spot for a third res hall cluster, if needed over the long term.
HP has seen several new tall and funky buildings over the past several years. And thin is in, as the new high rises in downtown and South Loop are proving. Same thing is happening in other major cities. I was in NYC for my eldest’s graduation in May, and noticed a few thin and tall construction projects in Midtown. No more Sears Tower-sized behemoths. Even the Hancock looks chubby these days.
Oh, my. I clearly haven’t been on the UC threads in a while! My S1 was in Breck all four years and came back after graduation and Scavved for several more years with Snitch. Has UC been using Breck for anything in the past few years? I used to stay at I-House when we were in Chicago – feels like a lifetime ago.
