The co-advisor for IRHA, Pete Englin, spoke to GSB last night to discuss future plans involving residence halls and dining facilities.

“Pete’s here, and I imagine he might talk about a new residence hall … it was pretty exciting news, especially when it’s in conjunction with a new dining facility in Friley Hall,” said GSB President Spencer Hughes while introducing Englin.

Englin said that the demands for student housing has exceeded capacity. Iowa State expects to have at least 6,000 freshmen Fall 2014.

“The challenge will be to get it done and get it done quickly,” Englin said.

Englin said living on-campus has some benefits compared to living off-campus.

“In the residence halls alone, we have over 1,600 students, nearly a quarter of the total population, in leadership roles,” Englin said.

He said some of the outcomes of living on campus include a higher GPA, learning communities, social integration, higher goal commitments and more academic engagement compared to students not living on-campus.

With the increasing student population, the Department of Residence doesn’t want to decline students that want to live on-campus.

Last year, some students were housed in the residence hall dens due to a lack of space.

Sen. Alex Knee asked about the students living in the dens of the residence halls.

“They love it, they like it, but we also want them to experience success the same as other students,” Englin said.

He also said that not everyone in the residence halls was thrilled with them staying in the dens. Some students expressed that they wanted their den space back.

Englin showed statistics indicating students living in dens not doing as well academically in 2009, when compared to off-campus students, and only this past fall reaching a similar level of academic success.

The IRHA has been working to improve the residence hall life at ISU. This includes the Internet connections in residence halls.

“The newest technology is 900 megabites … the problem is, the signal doesn’t go out as far in our buildings,” Englin said. “There’s currently 796 APs [access points] in our residence halls and Frederickson [Court] that we currently support. We are adding a thousand to intersperse among those.”

In addition to adding more access points for better Internet connection, one of the largest concerns of students on campus, Englin also gave details as to the costs for renovating the residence halls.

Bathrooms would cost $2.5 million, windows $12 million, heating and cooling $20 million and furniture for Friley would be $2.2 million.

Additionally, Englin discussed plans for a new residence hall near Buchanan, which would contain 700 new beds, though details were still being finalized. Englin also mentioned contracting with off-campus locations in order to accommodate for the rising enrollment.

“We have a unique opportunity to do things that make this place more possible so more students will persist and be more successful,” Englin said.