Temporary inconveniences, permanent improvement: Branner to be renovated Branner to be renovated

Imagine being an incoming freshman again and sitting in Memorial Auditorium for “Faces.” Each dorm has come up with a different cheer to assert its superiority. The energy is high and the atmosphere is raucous. But only one thing is missing. As much as you might strain your ears, you won’t hear even a whisper of the familiar freshman mantra, “Branner sucks! Branner sucks!”

Beginning in September, Branner will be closed until June 2003 while undergoing a complete renovation of its housing and dining facilities. The Branner facelift marks the end of several major housing projects that have occurred over the past two years. It also marks the beginning of a number of housing changes coming to campus over the next few years.
Adding Rooms, Losing Room

The remodeling of Mirrielees last summer and is still only two-thirds done. The coordination of these building projects — in particular the renovation of Branner and the conversion of Mirrielees to triples — are orchestrated to work in conjunction with each other.

“It’s all part of our Capital Improvement Program,” said Executive Director of Student Housing Services Rodger Whitney. “We planned the Mirrielees and Branner projects to coincide so that we minimized the number of beds that were lost in the process.”

Last summer the A- and C-wings of Mirrielees were converted from doubles into triples, yielding 100 new beds for residents. The plan for this summer is to convert the middle B-wing from doubles into triples, opening up an additional 50 new spaces.

“We are shooting for completion by Labor Day and that shouldn’t be a problem,” Whitney said. “While none of the landscaping or exterior work has been done, we only have one-third of the rooms to expand this summer.”
A Branner Planner

Whitney also answered what he said was an often-asked question — why will it take so long to remodel Branner?

“Branner is an old building,” Whitney said. “It is 80 years old and has a lot of historic structure. There is a lot of deferred maintenance to be done at the same time as the remodel.”

The closing of Branner eliminates close to 180 beds, leaving a deficit of 30 students without living quarters despite Mirrielees’s new spaces. The additional problem remains that the 180 lost Branner spaces would have been occupied by freshmen.

“I don’t want students to think that just because we are redoing Mirrielees now to help with taking Branner off-line that we are sticking freshmen in Mirrielees,” Whitney said.

According to Housing Assignments Manager Todd Benson, freshmen will be dispersed throughout Wilbur and Stern, so that each four-class residence will contain a few more freshmen than in the past.

“In order to maintain the same number of all-frosh houses, we will be converting a four-class house to an all-frosh house for the academic year 2002-03,” said Director of Residential Education Jane Camarillo.

This 30 lost spaces created in the Branner vacuum did not seem to trouble Whitney or Benson.

“That number won’t be hard to make up,” Whitney said. “It fluctuates from year to year, and with aspects such as Overseas Studies and students stopping out, it shouldn’t be hard to find a place for those students at all.”
Cardinal Commuters

Benson offered some suggestions as to how those beds will be found.

“Certainly Oak Creek and Sharon Green will be a primary — a significant — source in finding these spaces next year,” Benson said.

According to Benson, 200 students live in off-campus apartments, and Stanford makes every effort to make the situation relatively painless.

“We pay for high-speed [Digital Subscriber Line] Internet access and Marguerite service to and from the complexes,” Benson said. “They are actually cheaper than some on-campus residences.”

Benson added that no students are placed into either Oak Creek or Sharon Green unless they specifically request it during the Draw.

“If space opens up on campus later in the year, we will let [apartment residents] have a chance to move back on campus,” Benson said.
Uncommon Living Spaces

Accommodating students returning from overseas study is an additional chore for Housing Services.

A waiting-list draw occurs halfway through the quarter before the students on the waiting list will be housed. There is also a walk-on meeting at the start of each quarter.

“[The meetings are] only for students not in any University housing, which includes Oak Creek and Sharon Green,” Benson said.

Students are addressed in original Draw-number order and placed wherever openings arise. Both Benson and Whitney stressed that they will not resort to previous short-term solutions to the housing crunch.

“We aren’t going to be crowding people in any more,” Whitney said. “We don’t like converting common spaces to rooms and are trying to pull out of them.”

Instead, the University will look at the square footage of rooms around campus, especially in Row houses and determine where a room could reasonably hold another student. This will increase the number of beds on campus without jeopardizing common spaces or fairness to students. According to Benson, it would “just slightly change the availability of rooms within some in-house draws.”

A relationship exists between housing services and the Overseas Studies Program but not a direct partnership. Jacqueline Wender, the OSP director, described the relationship as “collegial and appropriate.”

“There is no issue of lack of communication,” she said.

Wender made it clear, however, that no one in either housing or Overseas Studies considers studying abroad to be a way to relieve housing crunches.

“I think it is important to clear up a basic misconception about the relationship of Overseas Studies to housing,” Wender said. “Simply put, we want to increase enrollments because we believe in the value of study abroad.”

Wender said that concern over housing is one of the factors that students consider when applying to study abroad. However, when compared to academic or athletic schedule constraints, it is almost a non-issue.

“In a perfect world, understanding all logistical problems and not wishing to create headaches for anyone, it would be great for students who go abroad in the winter to be able to return to the residence they left in the fall,” Wender said. “It would also be nice if students going abroad could know where they will live before they return.”
Livin’ on Levin

Although the University has mostly worked out its approach for dealing with next year’s unique housing situation, the issue of expansion and renovation is an ongoing process.

“We plan to renovate cluster one of the Row houses in the summer of 2003,” Whitney said. “This includes Kappa Sig, 680 [Lomita] and Theta Delt.”

Whitney also said that a possible long-range plan would be to build a house on Levin field — former location of the temporary post office — which would add 150 beds. According to Whitney, there exists “no specific timeline or direct planning” for the project.

According to Student Housing Services, the current planning and coordination going into renovations and relocations ensures that Stanford will continue to guarantee four years of housing and handle all housing crunches in the near future. Although next year’s freshmen will never know what they are missing by not being able to chant “Branner sucks,” they can be thankful that they will at least have a place to sleep.