Several students living in North Hall have to adjust to living in new rooms and new roommates at the start of this Spring semester–whether they want to or not. Students who missed the deadline to apply for housing for the 2019 school year were placed on a waitlist and placed into different rooms on campus. Those rooms included lounges that had been temporarily converted to triples in Martin and North Hall.

According to Alerie Tirsch, director of Residential Life and Housing, an abundance of returning students that wished to live on campus made it difficult to accommodate everyone with living spaces. Converting study lounges was one way Residential Life was able to house more students.

“The Martin and North Hall lounges were refurbished about two years ago,” Tirsch said. “It was our intention to keep them as lounges for all of the residents of these two buildings.”

Students who were placed into these renovated triples were told it would only be temporary until a permanent room opened up. Sophomore nursing student Michael Moss was one student who was placed in a lounge in North and then asked to move.

“At the start of the Spring semester I was actually forced out of my triple so they could do something with our room since it used to be a lounge,” Moss said. “It was just one of those things that I accepted because that’s just how Pace goes, and I was also in a triple, so I guess anything is better than that.”

The sudden move for students between semesters occurred because no permanent rooms became available until winter break. The lounges in Martin and North were renovated nearly two years ago, and it had been the intention of Residential Life to not have students permanently living in them again.

“Next year we are tripling one of the two bedrooms in every suite in Elm Hall to accommodate the demand for housing,” Tirsch said. “In addition we will continue tripling spaces in Alumni Hall. It is our hope that this will alleviate the need to convert the lounges back to temporary spaces. We will make a decision about that once room selection is complete.”

For Moss, moving from room to room is something he feels should not be happening at Pace.

“All in all, Pace needs to do a better job with their housing system,” he said. “The school is too expensive to force uncomfortable living conditions.”