Jonathan Shipley awoke and went from Helser Hall, where he’s lived both his years at Iowa State, to breakfast Friday morning.

He came back with the knowledge he’d have to find a new home this fall.

Department of Residence officials announced Friday afternoon Helser Hall would be closed during the 2004-05 school year as part of an effort to chop $1.7 million from the department’s budget.

“First of all, I was like, ‘Why?'” said Shipley, sophomore in aerospace engineering and president of Louden House. “What was so important that they had to close it three days before finals?”

Shipley, his housemates and other Helser Hall residents spent most of Friday trying to find more information on rumors that the partially deconstructed Union Drive dormitory, set to be decommissioned in 2008, wouldn’t be available for the 163 returning students who had claimed rooms there for the fall.

Randy Alexander, director of the Department of Residence, said the process that led to the closing decision was set in motion by a revision in late March of Iowa State’s enrollment projection for fall 2004.

The university lowered its projection by more than 300 students and now expects an incoming freshman class similar in size to the fall 2003 class of about 3,900 students.

“[The] freshman enrollment target was 4,200,” Alexander said. “[Then], we’re told, ‘We’re not going to make it.'”

Closing Helser was the most sensible way to deal with having fewer people paying room and board next fall, Alexander said.

“I don’t have any doubt that nobody likes last-minute decisions,” he said. “We don’t like them either.

“We’re not trying to create problems for you. We had to act, and we had to act pretty quickly.”

Nearly half of those scheduled to return to Helser Hall gathered in an Eaton Hall conference room Friday evening for a meeting with Alexander, Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Hill and other residence officials.

“I had more questions coming out [of the meeting] than I did coming in,” Shipley said. “I really didn’t get to the understanding of why it took them so long to decide about this.”

Drew Larson, president of the Inter-Residence Hall Association, said residence officials shouldn’t have tried to keep the possibility of Helser Hall closing under wraps.

“It was extremely secretive,” he said. “I found out through rumors [Friday] night.”

IRHA is designed to help work with both students and administrators in a situation like a hall closure, Larson said.

“There is a frustration that we’re completely left out,” he said. “The big decisions are made before we even know about it.”

Larson said it was clear from what he understood that there were few alternatives to what took place. IRHA does play a role in many important decisions, such as this spring’s determination to increase Internet bandwidth available to the residence halls, he said.

Still, the organization should be more involved with “prevention” of unpopular changes, he said, not just the “aftermath.”

“No decision was going to be well-liked,” he said. “[But] it’s our job to be relevant for these kinds of issues.”

Larson wasn’t the only person unhappy with how the decision became known.

“We’ve been working for several days to try to get this ready,” Alexander said. “We talked to Helser RAs [Thursday] … We told them we’re waiting on the decision.

“We said do not share this until we get clearance. Somebody did,” Alexander said.

Alexander said his department’s plan had been to have staff members inform the 163 returning students in person to check for an e-mail about the pending closure. The early rumors, which spread by word of mouth and on the Internet message board StrangeTalk, led eventually to Friday’s meeting being moved up an hour to deal with worried students’ concerns.

“To get 60 people there on a no-notice basis, I thought was pretty good,” said Owen Koch, sophomore in computer engineering and Louden House resident.

Koch, Shipley and their Louden floormates said they will try to move as a whole into Friley Stange and retain the community they’ve built in Helser Hall. Only the displaced Helser residents will be allowed to use AccessPlus for moves within the Union Drive Association until May 7.

“I hope because we’re moving enough of us, we’ll be able to preserve what we have now,” Koch said.