New housing prices create tension between students and admin

A video of a perplexed baby begrudgingly swallowing a spoonful of green mush found its way to the Facebook newsfeed of hundreds of St. Michael’s students on Friday, Feb. 12. Shannon McQueen, ’16, Student Association (SA) president, captioned the farcical video with a simple message: “How I feel when the administration of SMC continues to make bad, large-encompassing decisions (that affect students) without consulting them.” The post was soon inundated with responses — 19 comments and 98 likes as of Sunday, a majority of which came from students and alumni.

McQueen was reacting to the differential residential pricing structure, a recent housing decision made by St. Michael’s administration, in which the current arrangement — a single fee for all housing across campus — will change dramatically to a tiered fee with the 2016-17 academic year. As McQueen wrote in her Facebook post, “They changed the price for the housing structure, so depending on what building you live in, you pay a different amount.”

Of paramount concern to her and the executive board of the SA is the possibility that this new structure may segregate campus based on the financial status of students, McQueen said in an interview. “We don’t want there to a be a rich kid’s dorm and a poor kid’s dorm.”

Until an official email from the office of the vice president of finance detailing the new policy was released a week later, this social media post and ensuing digital dialogue were many students’ only entry point into a campus-wide conversation about inclusion, transparency, and most importantly, the future of on-campus housing.

Why now?

“When we broke ground on the new residence hall, it seemed like it was time to really look at the equity of our current pricing structure,” said Sarah Kelly, vice president of enrollment and a member of the President’s Cabinet. The current structure, in which all students pay the same price for housing regardless of living area, has been in place since the college was established in 1904.

Up until the end of this academic year, all students living in a dormitory-style building with an unlimited meal plan paid $10,975 for room and board. Students living in an apartment-style residence with a 40-block meal plan (40 meals per semester) paid $8,560.

Under the new policy, which takes effect for all students in the fall 2016 semester, the price in housing will vary by as much as $3,850 depending on the amenities of the building they are living in and which meal plan accompanies their living area. At the bottom of this scale are apartments or townhouses with double rooms and a 40-block meal plan, which will cost $8,700 per year. At the top of this scale is the Quad Commons residence hall, which features single rooms, private bathrooms, and an unlimited meal plan, for $12,550 per year (for complete information, see photos and graphics above).

“We’ve been talking about this for years because we thought the current system is unjust, but of course, the spin some people put on it is that the new system is also unjust,” St. Michael’s President Jack Neuhauser said during a recent interview in his office. “Basically, we felt it was unfair for people in the quad to be subsidizing really nice [living] quarters elsewhere.”

According to Kelly, “Our goal was to make sure that we don’t break up friend groups, that we meet demonstrated financial need keeping in mind that we are right-ing a very old structural wrong.” This new policy is based on the belief that it is unfair for students living in old, basic residence areas to be paying the same amount as another student living in newly-constructed, highly-modernized dorms. “This is putting us more in line with industry standards, and it gives the student body a choice in where they want to live and what they want to pay for,” Kelly said.

During the decision process, Kelly said the cabinet consulted schools of similar size and makeup to determine whether this pricing structure has been effective elsewhere. Emmanuel College in Boston, charges different prices based on how many people are sharing a living space. For a double occupancy room, the residence fee is $13,920; for a triple occupancy room, the fee is $11,420.

At St. Anselm in New Hampshire, another college the cabinet examined, a standard double room, which includes a meal plan, costs $13,334 per year. For a standard single room, which includes a meal plan, the cost per year is $14,544. For an apartment-style residence, the cost per year is $11,118 and does not include a meal plan.

Kelly added that all of the housing stock on campus could never be renovated to the level of the new residence hall, currently named Residence Hall #4, which will provide campus with 186 ‘premium beds,’ therefore, other measures to bring equality to campus housing needed to be taken.

Student Association backlash

To the executive board of the SA, the lack of student input and transparency in the decision making process is equally as important as the details of the new pricing plan. “We did not know that this was happening until after the decision was made,” McQueen said. “Yet, this decision has been made and will be implemented next year. There was absolutely no transparency that this was even being put on the table.”

At an emergency SA meeting held on Sunday, Feb. 15, the executive board of the SA wrote a letter to the President, his cabinet, and the Financial Planning Office condemning the new policy and requesting a compromise.

McQueen shared the letter publicly in a Facebook post, which received 173 likes and 46 shares, as of Sunday. The letter addressed concerns dealing with transparency in administrative decision-making and gentrification of the college due to a class divide.

McQueen said that the response to the letter was defensive. “The SA assumed we hadn’t thought about the segregation aspect,” Kelly said.

“The president’s cabinet felt attacked and thought we were not representing the decision as the whole,” McQueen said, referencing a meeting she had with select members of the executive board of the SA and the president’s cabinet.

“We were told that we don’t have our facts straight and students are making a lot of rash statements based on misinformation,” said Meaghan Diffenderfer, secretary for communication for the SA.

“In their mind they have different [safeguards] in place to prevent strong gentrification,” McQueen said. “I’m still very unclear about what they’re doing to prevent a divide.”

Additionally, the letter called for the administration to take the SA’s concerns into consideration by making two amendments to the policy. First, they asked for the abolishment of the on-campus housing policy. According to a Defender article published in Sept. 2005, students were allowed to live off-campus until 2005; the article indicated that the administration had frowned upon off-campus housing since the 1970’s.

Secondly, they asked for a grandfather clause that would allow for current students to maintain the old pricing structure, “under the terms to which they agreed to when they enrolled.”

Both compromises were rejected. The first was rejected out of safety concerns, involving both physical and mental health, for students living off campus. The second was rejected because of the logistical difficulty of managing an array of pricing differences in their information management system, according to Kelly. “There’s no easy way to make the change,” she said. “You just have to rip off the bandaid,”

Allison Sherman is the assistant director for alumni and parent relations, and an alum from the class of ’05 who was affected by the change in the off-campus housing policy that year. Despite memories of the housing pinch caused by the ‘05 policy, Sherman remains an on-campus advocate, regardless of the price tag, saying students have, “the rest of their lives to live off-campus.” As for the differential residential pricing structure, Sherman said, “You’re learning how to be an adult.”

“As an adult, unfortunately you often live where you can afford, and that’s life. When you graduate you will have to make that decision. You have to seriously examine your income and savings to figure out where you can afford to live, so it is a real-life question that you’ll have to answer someday,” Sherman said.

The official announcement

On Friday, Feb. 19 at 6:16 p.m., exactly one week after the original Facebook posting from McQueen, the Office of the Vice President of Finance sent out an email detailing the policy change and addressed the concern among some students about how the change will impact them financially as well as interpersonally. This was the first formal communication from the college to students regarding the policy change. The email was sent just a week prior to housing opt-in, the window of time in which students are able to determine which housing process or living-area selection process, they will participate in.

In the email, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer Neal Robinson wrote, “The overall price increase comes at a time when we have made significant investments in residential infrastructure to better serve our students; the change in pricing structure was implemented not only to better align with housing practices within higher education, but to provide what we believe is a more equitable system.”

Robinson also noted that the new residential costs are still “on par, if not lower than average” than housing costs in the local market at other colleges.

Student reactions

Despite the change in pricing structure, some rising seniors — most of which will only see a slight raise in residential costs — expressed indifference. “I think it’s fair,” said Amy Haggerty, ’17. “If you live in Alumni, you shouldn’t be paying as much as someone who lives in the 400’s.”

Haggerty explained that she and her friends are aiming to acquire a four-person townhouse next year, preferably in the 200’s. “I really don’t think this [new housing structure] will affect where I live next year,” she said. “My roommates and I are all pretty much set on where we want to live.” The price for a 200’s series townhouse will be $9,450.

Lucas Margenot, ’17, is aiming for a single in Quad Commons, an area on campus that will be experiencing a large increase in pricing and cost Margenot $12,550. “This new housing structure does not affect me,” he said. “I would be overjoyed if I got in.”

Some international students also have shown indifference to the change. Pun Sanitwannakul, ’18, an international student from Thailand, currently lives in Cashman Hall. Next year, he intends on getting a single in Quad Commons. “I don’t care about the prices at all,” he said.

Zoe D’Olimpio, ’18, a rising junior, had the opposite reaction. D’Olimpio said “I have done a lot of thinking about it and discussed it with my parents. I started looking at options for next year that I probably wouldn’t have looked at if there weren’t any price changes. We discussed living off-campus or changing my meal plan.”

Many rising sophomores, however, are feeling more angry as they are the demographic that will be most affected. Assistant Director of Student Life Brian Lee presented an information session in McCarthy on Tuesday, Feb. 23 to nearly 300 current first-year students.

“Any time there are changes in prices, it’s concerning,” said Kevin Hutchins, ’19. “I think money will be an important factor in where I will be living. In terms of trying to live with my friends, I can see it being a possible issue. This is not what I expected coming to St. Mike’s.”

“I heard about it on my class’ Facebook page and then a lot of people got angry and shared it from there,” said Caroline Hart, ’19. “I have to pay a portion of my own tuition so I’ll be thinking a lot more about the logistics and about sacrificing amenities.”

Phil Dowd, ’19, said, “I heard about it through a friend and didn’t believe it so I checked the website. It’s not even worth it to be on campus anymore for rooms that aren’t really that great. I’m going to look for one of the less expensive options.”

The differential residential pricing changes were the last topic discussed during Lee’s 45 minute presentation. “If you have questions about the fees, please direct them to the finance office,” he said. “They don’t have an endless pot of money, but they are willing to work with you.”

Lee added, “The college probably could have communicated [the pricing change] a little bit better, but it is what it is.”

Communication tensions

According to McQueen, lack of communication and student input has been a theme during her two years serving on the SA. No students were involved in the administration’s decision to change the housing structure. “We have been told repeatedly that this is not an area that students in the past have been involved in and they make these decisions on their own separate from students,” said McQueen. She questions why student input has never been considered during the yearly budgeting process.

However, the administration does not feel that they are lacking in transparency. “We have made no secrets of budget challenges, like every small liberal arts college,” Kelly said. “We’ve been pretty upfront.”

On Friday, Feb. 12, a budget review and forecast meeting presenting the college’s tentative financial plan for 2017-2021 was offered to faculty and staff by President Neuhauser, Vice President of Finance Neal Robinson, and Director of Business Services, Rob Robinson. While the meeting was directed towards faculty and staff, a few members of the executive board, including McQueen and Diffenderfer, were invited by Rob Robinson to attend the presentation when they met with him earlier in the day.

The following Friday, Feb. 19, a repeat of the budget review and forecast meeting was to be held, should at least 20 faculty and staff members have RSVPed by Thursday, Feb. 18. When students, who were also interested in hearing the budget, signed up to attend, they received an email on Thursday, Feb. 18 from Kristin Gehsmann, associate professor of education and moderator of the faculty assembly. “Thanks for your interest in the budget presentation tomorrow afternoon,” she wrote. “Unfortunately this event is for Faculty and Staff only. I apologize for the confusion.” The meeting the next day was never held.

Budget woes

In a private interview, Neuhauser addressed the problems many private institutions face when planning their budgets. “We’re really the only country in the world that has this kind of private education,” he said.

“It’s illusory, because it seems to be less expensive to go to a public school, but it takes six years to graduate and you can’t get courses. Look at the University of Massachusetts and how hard it is to get courses. So, it looks cheaper, but it may not be. And we suffer a little bit, because we don’t advertise or pretend — we’re not a job place. It’s not a place where you come here because you’re going to be a machinist, or an airplane pilot, or something like that. That’s just not who we are.”

Neal Robinson said that he is currently anticipating a 3.3 percent increase in tuition for the coming academic year, which follows the typical trajectory of annual tuition increases, and that this increase will be coupled with a three percent increase in the residence fee.

The change in the housing structure is one of the areas of the forecasted budget that will have the biggest impact on students returning to the college next fall. The residence fee includes more than room and board. “Look at all of the services you receive that are not in the classroom and the res fee is paying for it,” said Robinson. “For use of the Chittenden County Transit System, the bus service we provide to North Campus, the Friday night dry’s, the programming, all of the hamburgers Lou Dimasi is cooking out in the quad or wherever he does it. There’s a ton of stuff that has to be paid for out of the residence fee.”

Lou DiMasi, director of residence life, said he thinks individual students can still live where they like, but they may need to work with the financial aid office to make it financially viable. “All five of my children have taken classes here, three have lived in the [residence] halls,” said DiMasi. “If they were here [today], I would tell them to go after the residential area that they want [to live in] and then make the school work for you.”

Neuhauser said he does not believe the concerns raised by the SA in the Feb. 15 letter sent by McQueen, will divert people away from living in certain buildings. “I think we have plenty of evidence based on the questions we see so far from students that those aren’t the kind of concerns we’re getting at all. The questions are more or less, ‘How can I get into the best, or most expensive, housing?’ Says a lot about students, doesn’t it?”

Discussion about a new housing structure began in October, when ground was broken on Residence Hall #4. Neuhauser said that the final decision was made in the first two weeks of January, but that if the situation were repeated, he would have preferred the decision to be made in November of 2015.

“We really should have communicated it much better than we did,” said Neuhauser. “It’s a management decision, but we should have had discussion.”

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