New Dorm Authorized

To MEET THE increasing demand for dormitory rooming accommodations, the Board of Trustees at its annual spring meeting on April 29 authorized the building of a new dormitory as recommended by the Committee on Student Residence. The new unit, housing between 50 and 100 students, will be built for occupancy beginning with the college year 1940-41, but cannot be erected in time to alleviate the shortage of dormitory rooms for the coming year.

The Trustees left the size and nature of the new dormitory up to the Committee on Student Residence. Dean Neidlinger, chairman of the residence committee, stated that that body would consult Palaeopitus and the Interdormitory Council in drawing up its proposals. In accordance with College policy, the building will be financed out of present endowment funds and will be carried in the College books as an investment.

In submitting its recommendation to the Board of Trustees, the Committee on Student Residence traced the growing popularity of the dormitories and described the present situation in which a record number of undergraduates have retained their dormitory rooms for next year. The customary freshman reservations, added to this record number, have left no rooms for general selection by other members of the College.

Reservations by present dormitory residents have filled over goo of the total of approximately 1600 spaces, not counting the Tuck School dorms. The remaining spaces are being reserved for members of the incoming freshman class, in accordance with the College policy that dormitory accommodations should be available to practically all entering men. The number of spaces retained by dormitory residents is well beyond the renewal record of 792 spaces set last spring.

In summarizing the general rooming situation for the Board of Trustees, the Committee on Student Residence pointed out that the growing popularity of dormitory residence in recent years has been accompanied by a shrinkage in fraternity accommodations and in approved offcampus rooms. Fraternity spaces have decreased from 432 to 352 since 1934-35, while approved off-campus spaces have shrunk from 650 in 1934-35 to 465 at the present time. During the current college year there have been only 11 dormitory vacancies, 8 fraternity vacancies, and 38 off-campus vacancies, whereas the corresponding vacancies four years ago were 105 in the dormitories, 36 in the fraternities, and 156 off-campus. At the present time 69% of the student body lives in the dormitories, 17% off-campus, and 14% in fraternity houses.

The number of freshmen living offcampus has not exceeded 12 in recent years, compared to 137 back in 1937-28, and the Committee declared to the Trustees that it did not consider it desirable to return to the former practice. The addition of another dormitory, the Committee also declared, will restore something of the margin of flexibility which once existed in the room selection system.

J. WILLIAM EMBREE '21New Chicago representative on AlumniCouncil succeeding Louis E. Leverone '04whose second term of three years expiresin June.