September 18, 2000

Beginning next fall, students will no longer be housed in permanent triples, Vicky Triponey, vice chancellor for student affairs, told the Board of Trustees Tuesday during a meeting at Avery Point.

Triponey said although there is some overcrowding this year, it is no worse than last year. She reported that 8,660 undergraduates and graduates live on campus, the highest percentage of the student body of any public university.

"Student demand for our housing is growing," she said. "More and more students want the option of living on campus because of the residence hall renovations."

The residence halls are at 108 percent of capacity, with 188 triple rooms and 43 former study lounges housing four people each. Most of the 698 students who live in those rooms volunteered to do so. Another 102 students who are living off campus have expressed a desire to live on campus.

More housing will be available next September, when 1,208 new beds are expected to be open in suites in additional buildings in the Hilltop residence complex and apartments under construction behind the football stadium.

The new apartment-style housing, added to the suites provided in South Campus and Hilltop, will provide students with a full range of housing options, Triponey said. That means they can move from the traditional residence hall room to a suite to an apartment, as they prepare for living on their own after graduation.

Plans are being refined for a new program for housing assignments that will give priority to freshmen and sophomores. Seniors may be placed in a lottery system if demand for housing exceeds supply, Triponey said.

"We cannot guarantee housing in a residence hall for four years and seniors are more prepared to live in apartments than freshmen or sophomores are," she said.

Another change is that Buckley, a residence hall on Route 195, has now been designated an honors residence hall for freshmen and sophomores, with junior and senior honors students housed in South Campus.

At the meeting, the board agreed to acquire King Hill Road from the Town of Mansfield at an unspecified nominal cost. The road runs between North Hillside Road and North Eagleville Road. Four parcels of University land are located on the road, including two parking lots and the new Lodewick Visitors Center.

In other business, the board granted tenure to Chancellor John D. Petersen, professor of chemistry, and agreed to the naming of:

• the reading room in the Music and Dramatic Arts Library as the Frank B. Cookson Reading Room. Cookson was dean of the School of Fine Arts from 1962 to 1972, a period during which enrollment tripled and majors increased tenfold. It was also during his tenure as dean that library materials relating to music were consolidated into a music library.
  
  
• Room 336 in the SBA building will be named the Nayden Family Management Department Suite. Denis Nayden, who earned his bachelors in English in 1976 and his MBA in 1977, has committed $1 million to the University.
  
  
• Room 325 of the new SBA building will be named the David and Trisha Barton Marketing Conference Room. The Bartons have pledged $250,000 for the school.
  
  
• Room 204 in the new School of Business Building will be named for Mark E. Freitas '81, who has committed $145,000 to the school.
  
  
• Room 142 in the new Marine Sciences Building in Avery Point will be named the Sun Microsystems Research Laboratory. Sun Microsystems has given the University $450,000-worth of computer equipment and has notified UConn it will designate the Marine Sciences Department a "Sun Center of Excellence in Oceanography." "This is a designation that places the program in an elite class among other research universities working with Sun Microsystems," said Edward T. Allenby, vice president for institutional advancement.
  
  
• The new computer laboratory in the new School of Pharmacy will be named for Joseph Morosko, '52, who in his will contributed stock to the school that is now worth more than $151,000.
  
  

Karen A. Grava