HOUSING AND RESIDENTIAL LIFE AT URI A SHORT HISTORY "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana

1. Introductory:

One can easily imagine people currently involved in housing and residential education instantly raising eyebrows at the very mention of a historical survey, be it even the history of their own job in its present environment: What is this recourse to the past for? Why do we need to waste our time with things that had passed long ago when we have to deal with issues that are very present and sometimes very pressing right now?

Well, the benefit of knowing how residential education has been performed in the past is threefold: First, only so we can truly appreciate the efforts of our predecessors (remember, we are not the first who do this job). Second, in this way we can both avoid many previous mistakes and take over achievements of earlier generations (as Santayana’s motto indicates: those who ignore the history are doomed to repeat it). And third, by recognizing what our predecessors were striving for we shall be able to better understand where we are now and how to put that "now" into a broader perspective of URI development including our department’s projections for the future.

In hopes of sounding convincing enough, let’s start our exposition. Where to look for our beginnings? For more than one hundred years students have been coming to our campus seeking both education and accommodation. From the State Agricultural School to Rhode Island State College, many people at URI and its forerunners have been doing housing and taking care of residence halls well before our Department started to operate as an administrative unit. In other words, our department has a long pre-history, which is an inextricable part of housing and residential life at URI as a whole.

2. Collegiate and Village Housing in a Land-Grant College

History of housing and residential life at URI harks back to the end of the 19th century, when the first class, consisting of only 17 students, was accommodated in two dorms, both built in 1890. The first was College Hall, a large granite three-story structure, which, subsequently renamed Davis Hall, still adorns our campus (see the photo and the map). The second was a much less elaborate three story frame hall, known as Boarding Hall. Later nameed South Hall, it was erased to give place for the present Carlotti Administrative Building. (Don’t even try to find this hall on the maps that are produced after 1960!)

All of the students in both halls were males. Truly, women were admitted to housing from the very first, but not on campus. They found their first lodging at the Wells House in the village until the fall of 1895, when Watson House (the house of the original owner of the land) was transformed into a women’s dormitory. College Hall (Davis Hall) really lived up to its common name: it housed sleeping quarters, classrooms, a library, the chapel, the principal’s office and two workshops, one of which was a woodturning room. One can imagine how big a loss was it when that first dormitory burned to the ground in 1895. And one can understand why its reconstruction was a matter of survival for the school. Thus no surprise that it was rebuilt the very next year with the present bell tower and chimney added "for hygienic purposes". This tower has long since become symbolic in the life of our university. For more than a century, the bell in this tower has marked the beginning and the end of each class period, the times for refreshment, as well as study and sleep. Its powerful (and sometimes distracting) sounding is now accompanied with several musical themes. A story goes that you are obviously a new person on the campus if you are not able to recognize these tunes immediately. On the other hand, if at times you catch yourself whistling the same melodies the bell plays, then you have certainly been too damn long here.

At the turn of the Century the enrollment at the College passed the hundred-person mark and continued to steadily rise. Thus, the demand for accommodations soon surpassed the capacities of only one real dormitory – College, alias Davis Hall. It had been built to accommodate forty-five students, but in 1907 it contained sixty-four. Apparently, some major additions and changes had to be done. The situation imposed a choice: either to cut down the incoming classes or to "raise funds" (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) to put up another building. The decision was finally made to build a new bigger house (East Hall). With that idea in mind, College Hall (Davis Hall) was remodeled in 1909 to serve as the first solid women’s dorm on the campus. When male students learned that the new dormitory in East Hall was to have two and three residents in a room, they complained to the President and the Board. "Such uncomfortable and unsanitary crowding", they protested, was "not conducive to good work and scholarship". Our predecessors were eventually forced to lower the capacity of that building to only sixty-three students. It served as a dorm until the fifties, when it was put off line. Now it is being used by the Physics Department (see the photo on the right). Meanwhile, the old Boarding Hall, now called South Hall, was closed as a student residence due to fire safety reasons (1910).

3. Housing as a Military Camp and Postwar Return to Normalcy

During World War I, by then the Rhode Island State College became a military camp and soldiers regularly drilled on the Quadrangle. The still visible military component at our university (ROTC) dates back to the very beginnings, when Lippitt Hall was built with a gymnasium and a drill hall (1897). Instruction in military science was given there under the direction of Captain William Wotherspoon, who in 1914 became the U.S. Army Chief of Staff. The Grist, the senior yearbooks from that time always include a Bataillon section – an evidence of striving for excellence in the military skills. That striving, however, exacted its levy on the College, which in 1917 became completely geared to meet the war emergency. Military training came to be mandatory for all. Dormitories were turned to barracks. Referring to all these transformations, the Providence Journal observed that of all the institutions maintained by the State, "none… promises to be more valuable as a practical war asset than Rhode Island State College". However, that almost drained dormitories and lectures of students, who readily joined the armed forces.

The pressure for admission mounted in next years to the level that cought the College completely unprepared for that surge of enrollment. As never before, college-going became an accepted pattern of American experience. And that experience was really affordable. In 1921 tuition cost a Rhode Islander only $ 286 a year to live and study at Kingston. Included in the tuition was board at six dollars a week and room rent in either Davis or East Hall at forty dollars a year. However, the housing capacities on the campus were limited. It would take almost thirty years (1936) before a third (female) dormitory was constructed and named Eleanor Roosevelt Hall.

Instead of having a granite façade like the previous buildings on the campus, it was done in red bricks with nice chimneys and decorated doors. The building of this women’s dorm was not indicative only for the change of architectural style, but also in respect to a significant gender shift in student body. As soon as the College started to offer courses in Humanities, female students quickly outnumbered male students. As Davis Hall had been remodeled to be used as the second women’s dormitory, the only men’s dormitory remained as East Hall, built in 1909.
Thus the initial female minority became a majority in terms of campus housing.

In the thirties the total number of undergraduate students showed a slow but constant increase. This increase has not been followed by corresponding housing expansion. Thus in 1939 the enrollment at Rhode Island State College surpassed the accommodation by six to one. The increase of accommodations became a necessity.

4. The Challenge of Fraternities

Since public funds were not immediately available, some other venues were sought to alleviate the problem of insufficient housing. Fraternity organizations were considered a practical expedient for student housing. Fraternities were admitted to the College from the start and one can find signs of their activity in some halls as early as in 1910. President Edwards saw no dichotomy between the fraternity system and the purposes of the College, so long as the student societies understood their function. "Fraternities", he told the students, "should have for their purpose the development of manhood, the making of clean, right-thinking, noble, virile men." The fact is that the thirties and the forties were the heydays of fraternity system on our campus. Actually, they dominated the housing business well into the fifties. By the end of the thirties their houses accommodated more than half of all the students enrolled at the College. At that time college dormitories were able to provide basically only supervised housing, and fraternities, with their externally non-limited freedom and seductive air of camaraderie, appeared to be much more attractive to many new students.

For better or worse, fraternities and sororities had an immense impact on student culture and behavior on our campus. The change was visible already in the twenties, as has been noted by the Beacon (student journal which was replaced by the Cigar in 1971). Each September the student paper enumerated the "College Customs to Be Followed" (a counterpart of our "The Rules to Live by") and subsequent editions painfully catalogued the violations detected but, after years of frustration, the sense of outrage faded and was replaced by a philosophical resignation. President Edwards for his part required that all students sign an anti-hazing pledge and in 1925 they had to agree to abstain from drinking. However, it seems that all stayed by proclamations and appeals, without serious actions taken.

It is perhaps understandable that the administration of the College was anxious to avoid direct confrontations with fraternities in those days. It obviously respected the strength of the Greek system, which provided places for students who otherwise would have been turned down. If one cannot offer an alternative, the most reasonable approach is to live with the current state of affairs. But the end of fraternity predominance in matters of housing was in sight.

5. The Second War and the Quonset Hut Era

Fraternities sustained their first blow in the midst of the World War II. In 1943 they were suspended on the campus, for the sake of ongoing military preparations. Management of their houses was assumed by the College, in order to make them available as dormitories and dining halls for civilian students. Women from Roosevelt and Davis Halls were moved into the vacated fraternity units. As in World War I, the college dormitories were refitted as barracks to accommodate military trainees. Students found themselves virtually imprisoned in Kingston because of gasoline and tire rationing. In winter, they fought lethargy by devising ways to keep warm, and in spring, they organized various drives to support the country. In one drive they collected ten tons of scrap metal and, in excess of enthusiasm, almost donated the remnants of the Old Ben Butler, the Civil War Canon that had celebrated the birth of the College in 1892.

After the war, in keeping with the concept of general education made accessible to all, the College experienced an unprecedented flood of enrollments. College-going emerged from the condition of vogue to one of real need in a market dominated society. Already in the forties the total number of enrolled students reached 2500 students and continued to climb. President Woodward, who discovered that the number of students seeking enrollment in 1946 exceeded the number he prophesized for 1955, now chastely observed that "it is not possible with precision to predict college enrollment many years in advance". In 1946, a brochure entitled "Dividends unlimited", revealed a plan for new construction and reconditioning of existing buildings over a ten-year period. Big structures, however, needed both time and money, and neither was available. Under the circumstances, the only solution was something quick and temporary.

Thanks to special State Appropriation the College secured several allotments of war surplus structures which were used to erect temporary dormitories. Thus 47 Quonset military huts (named after the Naval Air Station at the Quonset point) were transformed into dormitories for men, while ten others were fitted and furnished as 2-family apartments for married students – a new phenomenon in college life. Two one-story structures, used previously for women naval personnel, were also brought to the campus where they served for a time as annexes to the women’s dorms. One of these became the campus infirmary, which was located close to our present main office in Roger Williams Center. Housing immediately expanded by an unbelievable 85% within a single year. In view of the huge presence of these military structures on the campus (east side of the Quandrangle, behind Bliss Hall), the whole period is known as the "Quonset Hut Era".

In terms of student life, veterans, housed in Quonset huts were anxious to recapture the years they sacrificed for the Country, and, consequently viewed the rites of the extra-curriculum generally as time-consuming frivolities. Others, accommodated either in the three classical dorms or in the fraternities, mostly shared the same attitude. While they all were living under the hallmark of what was referred to as "Hut City", new dorms were underway. With the aid of a State agency, a master plan for campus development was prepared and completed in 1948 envisioning the construction of several dormitories. The first result was Bressler and Butterfield Halls put on line in 1950 as male dorms. The red brick dormitories, flat roofed, three and half stories high, were obvious products of the factory-functional school of architecture, which claimed that "form follows purpose". They were felicitously hidden on the side of the hill, behind the stately Georgian buildings of the old Quadrangle. But for the 200 students that each housed, Bressler and Butterfield Halls were palatial in contrast with the shabby and overheated Quonset huts. And the Institution, which finally managed to gain the official appellation of University in 1951, was rightly proud of these new bulidings; the University really needed a self-representation that would clearly include something going beyond the Old Village setting. It had already outgrown the college format in respect to the increased enrollment, extended program (liberal arts were widely introduced in the curriculum), academic reputation and enlarged physical resources, but still lacked some signs of the new status, notably a big library and "modern halls".


6. The Unprecedented Expansion and the Consolidation of the University

From 1950 through 1955 the enrollment entered a phase of relief bringing stagnation. The search for security and the protective coloration of conformity dominated student life in the early fifties. However, as the decade progressed involvement in the movement toward social change and an activist temper became important areas of student interest. They were pursued in quite ways, without the crescendo of protests that would wrench many campuses in the sixties. Nonetheless, campuses became beehives for students and the enrollment at URI reached 2600 in 1957. While residents of the State continued to receive preferential consideration, the flat restrictions on admission of out-of-state applicants were removed in order to "encourage breath of new among our Rhode Island students". In keeping with the same idea, the attendance of minority and foreign students was supported by means of scholarship aid. Fraternities and sororities regained strength. At the state university, however, their appeal laid more generally in the supposedly agreeable accommodations of living they provided rather than in the social distinctions they were sometimes thought to confer.

Still unaware of its potential, halls associations (a new form of self-government in dorms) tended to emulate fraternities rather than to develop its own ways and styles of organizing "social life". The fraternities remained hidden models in their self-proclamations well into the fifties: "The purpose of the Bressler Hall Dormitory Association", says one act from 1956, "is to promote a fraternal atmosphere within the dormitory". Women hall residents also used to define themselves in reference to sororities: "Eleanor Roosevelt Hall is not only a huge brick encasement in which freshmen and independent non-sorority girls live, but is an actual home."

Despite spatial innovations, residential life was regarded as separate from, and unrelated to, the intellectual life of the classroom and laboratory. The Men’s Dormitory Association in both Bressler and Butterfield were praised in 1953 for the "splendid job" they were doing "in keeping ‘law and order’". Consequently, the common wisdom was that residence halls do not need anything more than benevolent, parental control agents – legendary housemothers. Usually housemothers were older women who lived in the residence halls conducting bed checks, instructing students in social graces and enforcing curfews. They literally served in loco parentis. As becomes clear from these dorm gems, the overall emphasis was rather on rules and discipline. Under the watchful jurisdiction of two Deans (of Men and of Women, respectively) malefactors were disciplined accordingly. After a college function the female students were to return to their college homes no latter than fifteen minutes after the close of the function. Freshmen of both sexes were to be in their dorms by 7:30p.m. Sunday through Thursday, unless attending a college function. The house-mothers, and the Dean of Women were to be notified of all house guests. The writer of an article, that reported on these regulations in the centennial URI yearbook, could not help commenting on the contrast: "Wouldn’t our fore-bearers be shocked at today’s co-ed dormitories!!"

In 1958, three additional dorms were built on the campus: Hutchinson, Peck, and Adams Hall. Hutchinson and Peck Hall were the first two women’s dorm built since Roosevelt Hall. Adams, whose ground breaking took place in 1957, was designated a men’s dorm. These three residencies together accommodated almost 450 students and significantly alleviated the shortage of housing. In addition, the apartment buildings for graduate students were started in 1957 to be occupied in 1959. Due to an overcrowded freshmen class, 30 girls took up residence the following year in the row of sparkling brick buildings then known as the "little Campus". By the end of that period, URI was able to introduce significant improvements in the state employees benefits system (health insurance, retirement, remission of fees for children and eligibility for federal social security). It still ranks high in comparison with systems that are being offered in other state colleges.

7. A Decade for Decision and the Dissenting Generation

The approaching avalanche of "war babies" was expected to bring an additional thousand students by 1960. A new "plan for the long-range development" of the University, that would "take immediate steps to expand its Kingston campus", was prepared and published under the title "Decade for Decision". The program was divided into two parts, academic-administrative facilities and housing. Referring to the second part within the ten-year development program, newly elected President Horn predicted that in any given year over the next decade there would be "building in use for the first time, buildings being constructed, and buildings in the planning state". And so it was. In 1961, students moved into a new men’s dormitory named for Harold Browning, and two new women’s dormitories memorializing Lucy Tucker and Harriet Merrow. These dorms were finished just as land was being prepared for the construction of two more dorms that would be dedicated to John Barlow and John Weldin, when completed in 1963. All these dorms are corridor style dorms, but differ in size (Tucker and Merrow belong to the "little four").

The largest construction activity in the area of URI housing took place in the next three years (1964-67). At the end of that period six more dorms were finished in a single year together with the Roger Williams Center. They were Aldrich, Burnside, Coddington, Dorr, Ellery, and Hopkins Halls. These halls were built according to the same polygonal pattern: brick tower buildings with clustered rooms (four room suites). Aldrich, Hutchinson and Coddington were originally women’s dorms, the others were men’s. At the time of construction, these buildings offered students self-contained suites with living rooms and semi-private bathrooms. Unfortunately, the reconfiguration of interior space mandated to meet fire code requirements in the 1970s eliminated a primary source of student socialization space, the study lounges. Last additions to URI housing facilities were three suite-style dorms. Heathman Hall, located on the lower portion of the campus was built in 1969. In 1970, the last two dorms, Fayerweather and Gorham Hall, were completed. These three dorms are two-room suite style dorms and were designed to meet the highest housing standards of that time. In response to student activism and protest during the 1960s, the role of these halls and their staff members changed dramatically. House-mothers were replaced by residence heads and executive boards (later advisory boards or residence councils) were established. Head residents were responsible for coordinating a multitude of organizations, services, and programs, including counseling, judicial boards, residence assistants, and outreach counselors.

At the end of the sixties, many previous regulations on residential life began to be lifted, and students began to become more involved and interested in decision-making and creatively shaping dorm activities. For the first time URI students started to show interest in the plight of the masses, minorities, disabled persons. There was a new wave of caring both for humanity and everyday issues of dorm life. URI students organized sit-ins protesting equally the war in Vietnam, poor housing and the lack of parking facilities. Black students discovered that their group concerns should be voiced and at one point, when their demands were not given appropriate heed, they barricaded themselves in the Registrar’s Office.

Amidst all these changes, the old in loco parentis concept simply could not keep pace with this energy. As a consequence, a special committee appointed to study social regulations suggested that 21 year-old students should be permitted to posses and use alcohol on a trial basis. Suddenly, dormitories were struck with a very permissive culture, which enabled them to become real focal points of campus life. Until 1961 dorms were represented in official publications only as an appendix to the fraternity section. But in the Grist from that year, as an unmistakable sign of upcoming emancipation, halls received for the first time their own separate heading: "dormitory life".

Never again fraternities and sororities managed to re-take their old dominant position. In the fifties, they were still considered as educational units and a good addition for housing. This picture was going to change dramatically in the sixties and seventies. Their old advantages remained still appealing, but in terms of safety and fostering of educational goals they were increasingly exposed to the perils of substance and sexual abuse.

8. The Turning Point: The Founding of HRL Office

In the seventies total enrollment reached and exceeded 6000 students. All 19 dorms were able to house 4,154 students, the highest number ever. The record was made possible by excessive tripling of almost all available rooms. Dorm life at URI has irreversibly changed. As a result of the Heathman Hall initiative (1970), Barlow and Heathman opened in 1973 as first co-educational dormitories. Although there were many initial problems with the newly acquired freedom, the experiment has been successful, for many more dorms hit the same way next year.

These changes raised a new dorm-consciousness. Halls at URI were now perceived as a "contained community of students, experiencing perhaps the most valid, tangible education a University can offer, exposure to our peers". Freedom and authenticity were now derived from dorm experience and not negated by it: Those who stay in residence halls are "free to be themselves, and in being individual, are free to share their individuality, and to strengthen the spirit that ties the 19 buildings at the bottom of the hill together."

The pinnacle of all these developments was an emergence of the Housing and Residential Life department in its present form. The history of that rise didn’t have only one decisive point, which could be singled out as our founding day. Rather it was a history of gradual evolution both in respect to internal organization and definition of responsibilities. The learning process how to productively unite fundamental housing concerns with much loftier but not less important issues of residential life passed through many tentative stages before it finally reached the point we now take for granted. The co-existence of two separate committees (Housing and Student Life) reflected the common wisdom of the day about two totally different competencies meeting each other in student dormitories. For a long period of time the main issue was about which office should be administratively and fiscally in charge for the whole. Beginning in the seventies the Dean of Student Office regained responsibility for Student life within residence halls. as a consequence, residence assistants and residence directors were trained and supervised by an Assistant Dean of Students. The responsibility for the finances, physical maintenance and repair of the buildings was retained by the Office of Housing.

Finally, in 1972 both the Dean of Students and the Director of Housing submitted a reorganization plan which would favor "establishment of a single Office of Residence Life, replacing the two offices now having responsibilities for residence halls". In 1973/74 the President approved a reorganization. During 1976 the newly founded Office of Housing and Residence Life started to handle both the fiscal and educational aspect of housing, totally and permanently.

The seventies in many ways determined our current structure and work-style. The latent conflict in the RA role as "helper" and "enforcer" was noted as early as then. The still common tendency of "encouraging each hall to establish a unique identity", stems also from these years. Co-ed housing, which was introduced in 1972/73, certainly belongs to the category of the most positively evaluated reforms as well as the abolition of curfews. Visitation hours were extended and two visitations options (limited and unrestricted) have been offered, a step forward in comparison with the regime before the sixties, although even in the mid seventies visitation was in some dorms limited to the same gender.

However, the most important legacy of the seventies remains the living-learning orientation, which was for the first time formulated as a systematic and comprehensive project precisely in those years. An example of that development is a special program entitled "Project 70", that was launched in Gorham on a more informal and participatory basis. It was a groundbreaking shift which included participation of faculty members, lectures and residentially based courses. For many it meant a "higher quality of living and education" within college experience. Other dorms also opened their doors to workshops, panel discussions and various presentations, in one word, to all those activities we now perceive as an integral part of residential education.

9. Building Relations with an Disillusioned Generation

The eighties brought a very different kind of student. The students knew that the world was far from being perfect, but they didn’t want to change it, as the baby-boomers dreamed. They wanted to gain marketable skills as soon as possible, in order to be able to secure their small place of success in the society. The prevailing societal ideology became more conservative in many respects. In the environment of increased competition and new restraints, students badly needed all possible techniques to keep them able to "function". The University, accordingly, had to develop a whole net of counseling, recreational and career services. The major concern of the HRL Office throughout the eighties was to elaborate an efficient system of referral covering typical individual problems. All over campus there were pool tables and video games to offer distraction from the load and to help relaxation. To make the environment more friendly, even pets were allowed for a while, but that experiment didn’t prove successful.

Students felt protected and safe, educational programs were well attended and life in the halls was routinely something more than constant alteration of sleeping and making noise. Of course, there were those who used to "crank up the stereo", but the main goal was to become a "Dorm rat", person who knows answers to all dorm challenges.

Enrollment continued its steady rise from previous years. Hall occupancy climbed again close to its highest level in 1989, when URI housed 4052 students. Due to the increased enrollment most freshmen and some upperclassmen found themselves in "triples" ("triples" are rooms meant for two students, but because of housing shortage occupied by three). Some students protested, while some tried to live with that with a pragmatic attitude.

Residence Hall Coordinator (RHC) became the administrator of Residence Halls. The job was described as entailing "interaction with staff and residents in the areas of counseling, discipline, and programming events". Of course, not everything was so idyllic in the eighties. Alcohol and drug abuse were also noted as serious problems, but the excitement arising from the fact that "you’re no longer six feet from your parents bedroom door" was in itself evaluated very positively.

10. On the Crossroads of two Millennia - Current Situation

The most recent phase of its development our department entered in 1991, with a completely new leadership. The position of the Vice President for Student Affairs was taken over by Dr. John McCray, who came from the University of New York. Chip Yensan, who previously worked at the University of Connecticut, became new Director of the Department. This administration gave new impetus to the life of department. The old organizational scheme of area coordinators, that proved so cumbersome in the past, was abolished thus paving a new way to our present direct coordination (all hall directors meeting together). The number of hall directors was reduced to its original half. Each hall director was assigned to a pair of adjacent buildings. In return, the number of graduate assistants was significantly increased. In keeping with the concept of halls as living and learning communities, the emphasis was again clearly put on educational and counseling dimension of residential life. Currently we employ 115 Resident Assistants, nearing so the ideal ratio: one RA per hallway. Being carefully selected RAs act as effective role models in their halls and really conduct programming "like crazy".

The maintenance, ware-house, lock-shop and housekeeping staff are still backbones of our system. They provide invaluable support for our daily activities. McCray and Yensan are to be particularly credited for the work accomplished to resolve the chronic problem of all flat roof buildings – leaking. After 1995, that problem seemed to be definitely solved and students who were assigned to rooms in the highest floors did not have anymore to watch weather forecasts with fear. None of the buildings that were erected before 1950 are now being used for housing. We utilize the following 19 buildings as residence halls: Butterfield, Bressler, Hutchinson, Peck, Adams, Tucker, Merrow, Browning, Weldin, Barlow, Aldrich, Burnside, Coddington, Dorr, Ellery, Hopkins, Heathman, Fayerweather, and Gorham Halls. In addition, the University Terrace offers a kind of apartment accommodation to undergraduate students. The Central Office for Residential Education is located on the first floor of the Roger Williams Center housing six functional areas: central administrative systems, residential educational programs, fiscal management, housing facilities, student conduct, graduate, faculty and family housing. Faculty, graduate and family housing refers to the unfurnished apartments in the University Village on route 138 and the Gateway apartments, three complexes of buildings, which provide total of 140 units. All halls are wired for cable TV and data communications since 1997 and all residents now have easy access to URI computer network (e-mail, internet, on campus services) and approximately 30 channels. The University provides also local telephone service to each room.

These substantial improvements helped to reverse negative trends in student retention from previous years. From its high occupancy in 1989 the numbers fell dramatically in 1994-96 to the lowest point in our recent history (only 3200 students). The projection for the academic year 2000/2001 was 3500 students, which is exactly one third of the total undergraduate enrollment (10.250). The most recent data show that HRL will provide accommodations for 3600 students in 2001/2002. To secure additional financial resources HRL organizes intensified summer housing targeting particularly high school students and recreational groups. The last major accomplishment of the current administration is the great Renovation Project, which, when finished in 2007, should essentially improve our housing capacities and consequently raise the level of our competitiveness. Its highlights, the Freshmen Village and the new Community Center, are expected to signify a benchmark in the institution’s development. The Freshman Village will provide 1,250 freshmen with a shared living and learning experience within the six reactivated corridor-style buildings. Over the next six years the University will renovate 14 of its 19 residence halls at a rate of two each year. Also, beginning in the 2000 Fall semester the Department of Housing and Residential Life in cooperation with the Multicultural Center opened a new theme housing option, which represents a diverse multicultural community of students interested in issues and activities related to social justice and social service. Besides many small in-house programs, HRL sponsors some big off-house cultural events, like the Pangaea Music Festival which brings ethnic-bands from around the world.

No doubt, we are now better stuffed, better equipped, better trained and better managed than at any point in the past. We can therefore look with confidence both backwards and forwards. We are still facing many problems and there are many more ahead. We have to withstand fierce competition from other similar educational and housing institutions and we have to find new viable ways how to retain students. Enrollment has quadrupled in the past thirty years, yet institutional resources still need to meet increased educational demands rising with inflation. In addition, we still cope with safety issues and substance abuse (a survey from 1990 shows that marijuana is still drug of choice for 22% of students, and the most recent report indicated a significantly increased number of alcohol citations and suspensions in 1998/1999).

At the end of the second millenium, students at URI can choose to live in one of the residence halls on campus or off campus in one of the neighboring seaside communities minutes away from the campus. They can also commute from their family home or participate in the University Fraternity-Sorority system, which sponsors houses designed for congenial small-group living. Although Residence living offers more diversified experience of campus living than any other type of accommodations, it is by no means the only form of housing students can choose. Hence it has to reaffirm itself as a form that gives more in terms of personal growth, community development, cultural and educational interests, and communication possibilities. In accord with that, we have to reflect more consistently on what it means to belong to a community of individuals of different races, genders, cultures, sexual orientations, religions and abilities. While recognizing special gifts and needs each individual brings to the community, we have to challenge petrified values and beliefs in a constant effort to educate ourselves and others. If the chance to feel the freedom of living in a residence hall has always been a wonderful opportunity for students, today, given the call we have on their lives, it’s a "best chance" for campus educators. But that chance will not come by itself. We must discover the ways how residence halls can substantially contribute to student learning and personal development by becoming a more integral part of the overall educational experience of the University. Simply, we have to reach out to communicate and cooperate for the benefit of each individual and the community.

Appendix: Administrative Support and Maintenance

Gradual progress of housing and steady improvement of residential life at URI would have been impossible, had not many administrative and maintenance workers done innumerable long hours to make our life on the campus go smoothly. Their support has been of vital importance for our department. Regretfully, the history of these "supportive" units is very poorly recorded, a persuasive sign that we do not recognize sufficiently the importance of their contribution.

The development of our administration is even less preserved for the posterity. We know, however, at least two things for sure. First, continuity of our work has been provided mostly by administration, who stayed no matter what. Second, administrative divisions and organizational schemes have been changing and will probably continue to change, but striving for a housing that will be at the same time safe and conducive to learning will always remain our common concern.

Note: This historical survey is only an extract from a broader study. For the entire version, please contact the author. The survey is based on the following sources:

H. F. Eschenbacher, The University of Rhode Island, A History of Land-Grant Education in Rhode Island, New York 1967; C. Woodward, From College to University, 1941-1958, Kingston 1960; C. Woodward, Education’s "Lively Experiment" in Rhode Island, Providence 1957; Decade for Decision at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston 1960; The Grist, Senior Yearbook, Kingston 1898-1972; The Renaissance, 1973-2000; Student Handbooks 1959-1974; Reports of the Dean for Student Affairs (1959-1974); The Beacon; The Good 5c Cigar; Oral testimonies given by HRL people; Personal observations.