The current housing options on the University of Maine campus are limited. There’s an utter lack of diverse housing options. Students end up choosing dormitories primarily on the basis of location and not any unique aspect of the dorm itself. Students aren’t choosing to live in Hancock Hall because they like its layout. They’re choosing it because of its proximity to other things. Since the dorms are broken up into complexes, academic buildings on campus end up pretty far away from the nearest dorms. There should be a better distribution of locations for dorm buildings on campus. While there isn’t anything inherently unlivable about cookie cutter dorms, it becomes incredibly uninteresting. There’s no variety in the room selection process. The most interesting thing you can do is decide to live in Doris Twitchell Allen Village (DTAV) or Patch, the suite style dorms on campus. There needs to be new, more interesting dorms.
Currently, Patch Hall is the newest option on campus. Even still, it’s over 20 years old. It’s older than the age of any traditional student on campus. Patch is a good housing option, but it’s unfortunate that what I consider to be the best dorm on campus, I still can only call good at best. In my brief time living in Patch, I’ve already experienced issues with facilities as well as problems with the heating.
The oldest dorms on campus are in the Honors complex (Balentine, Colvin, Penobscot, Stodder). These dorms have numerous issues—pests, fungus, mold, to name a few that I personally observed. Honors housing options have the notion of being the “nicer” dorms, but that does not ring true at this school. They don’t have much to distinguish them from the more traditional dorms on campus. Honors students sign up for honors housing under the presumption it’s nicer, but the honors freshmen dorms are not much different.
We need more dorm versatility. There are many different forms a dorm can take. We currently have three primary styles: single, double and suite. Some quad dorms have been made this year, but those were temporary and not a typical dorm style here. We need more diversity to incentivize people to live on campus and to choose housing styles that best fit them. One dorm format I suggest is singles and doubles connected by a shared bathroom. It’s similar to the suite-style format, but simpler for students who don’t want the maintenance and responsibility of a shared kitchen and living room like DTAV or Patch.
There also should be a bigger push for the living communities. It seems like most people don’t choose to live in these communities. This might be in part because they’re relatively niche sections. A majority of students aren’t going to sign up to live on the education major floor because they’re not education majors. There just isn’t an incentive to sign up to live in these communities, especially for upperclassmen who would rather move off campus because the dorms on campus aren’t adequate living.
Students don’t want to live on campus because the dorms are boring and antiquated. The average age of dorms on campus is 64 years old. If UMaine wants to foster a sense of on-campus community, they need to incentivize living on campus. This can only happen by offering interesting and comfortable living environments.
