Adorning her walls with posters of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, Nikki Varnado does what she can to make her confined, cinder-block apartment as much like home as possible.
But it is tough to escape her reality.
Varnado’s bathroom, which permits her to take about two steps from the door to the shower, has a mildew-stained bathtub, a ceiling vent which takes three minutes to kick on and a drainage problem in her sink that requires her to continually purchase excessive amounts of Drain-o.
In her living room, significant shifts in the foundation have caused a large crack to run down her front wall.
The size of her kitchen is comparable to that of her bathroom. Varnado said she only has one drawer for storage.
Varnado, an English senior, lives in LSU’s Nicholson apartments. It is all she can afford while she is in school. Currently, Varnado pays just under $400 a month for her two-bedroom apartment.
“I don’t know if I could make it if it weren’t for [the apartments],” Varnado said. “At least living on my own.”
Varnado also said on-campus housing is convenient.
“It’s good for students who teach,” Varnado said. “And for low-income families, it’s essential.”
Who lives there
The University built the Nicholson and Edward Gay apartments in the 1950s in response to married soldiers returning to college after the war.
The Department of Residential Life calls Nicholson and Edward Gay apartments “family and graduate student housing.”
Lori Patterson, the assistant director of family and graduate housing, said graduate students occupy 83 percent of the 578 total apartments. Seventy-two percent of residents are international students. The average age is 31.
Patterson said the students who live in Nicholson and Ed Gay apartments have different needs than typical undergraduate students.
“There are basic differences,” Patterson said. “Most of [the tenants] are getting their master’s, and are more serious students.”
Patterson also said many international students like the “one-stop shopping” situation with living on campus. All utilities are included in the rent and the University does not require deposits.
Many students also have to focus time on raising families.
Patterson said there are more than 300 children living in the apartments.
For Erica Andino, who came to the University from Honduras with her husband and their children, living in the Nicholson apartments has been a positive experience.
Andino, whose husband is in graduate school, said the apartments are small and were dirty at first, but it is the community aspect that is important to them.
“[International students] can find people that speak [the same] language and make friends with [the] neighbors,” Andino said.
Andino also said the playground provides a good place for all the children to play together.
Andino’s friend Carmen Ochoa agreed. Ochoa and her family came to the University from Colombia four years ago and lived in Nicholson apartments while Ochoa’s husband, Miguel Armenta, received his Ph.D.
Ochoa and Armenta moved into the University House at Brightside apartments in January after Armenta graduated. But Ochoa said she still comes back to the Nicholson apartments about three times per week to see her friends and let the children play with others their age.
Ochoa said their new home is not ideal for a family.
“There are no children there,” Ochoa said. “The children need other children to play with.”
Both women also cited the importance of being close to campus.
Andino said residents generally only need one car or can use a bicycle.
Housing Master Plan
Whether the residents like it or not, the apartments are old and Patterson said it is difficult to keep them up to University standards.
“We spent over $1.5 million last year doing what we call ‘rehab and renovations,'” Patterson said. “But you get to a shelf-life of a building.”
Patterson said the Nicholson and Edward Gay apartments have nearly reached their shelf-lives.
According to the University Master Plan, the Ed Gay apartments will be out of service in 2007 and the Nicholson apartments will shut down by 2008. Both will be demolished.
This change will force residents to find housing off campus, because graduate or married students are not eligible for any other on-campus residence.
The plan does not include rebuilding similar on-campus housing, but states, “new family housing that is affordable to the current population would require outside subsidy to be viable.”
Residential life has given Patterson the task of determining whether or not the University should rebuild.
To help make the decision, Patterson has set up a “task force” to examine all options and assess the needs of family and graduate students.
Patterson said the task force is looking at four possible options.
The first option is for the University to demolish and not rebuild. The second is to rebuild new housing similar to the West and East Campus Apartments.
The third is to not rebuild, but to set up an office on campus that helps coordinate off-campus living for graduate and international students. The fourth option is to follow in the footsteps of several other universities and privatize the rebuilding through cost and management sharing.
“In my opinion, there is certainly a need,” Patterson said. “But if we do rebuild, how are our residents going to be able to afford new rents?”
Patterson said building new apartments to the University’s style standards is expensive and would drive up the cost of rent.
And cost is the foremost concern for the students.
Agronomy and environmental management professor William Hudnall serves on the task force and said international students need housing on-campus for economic and educational reasons.
Hudnall agreed the housing must be torn down, but said according to a recent task force report, there is not enough housing in the area to occupy the students. The report examined all available apartment complexes in the area and found that all are at full or near-full capacity.
Hudnall proposed another approach.
He suggested subsidizing the apartments. In this case, the students would only pay a portion of the rent and the University would pick up the rest.
Hudnall said he recently visited Ohio State University, where new graduate student housing opened in the fall.
“[The new apartments] were very nice and included washer and dryers in each apartment,” Hudnall said. “[Students] paid about $650 a month, but they were subsidized, so [OSU] paid for the rest.”
Patterson said the task force also is going to look into federal subsidies such as Fannie May and Freddie Mac, where students could obtain federal money to cover a portion of the cost.
Another option would pair the University with a private company to set up a cost-sharing program. Patterson said other universities have done this to minimize building costs and put the financing in the hands of a private developer.
Patterson said privatization of family and graduate student housing has been successful at the University of California-Berkley and the University of Michigan.
Flagship Agenda
plays a part
The Flagship Agenda states that its goal is to “increase the total number of high-quality graduate students,” and to “continue to increase diversity of graduate students and faculty.”
However, it is possible that, without on-campus housing, some students — especially international students — may be turned off.
Business management senior Jason Wesley is serving on the task force and said he believes new housing will bring better graduate students.
“If [a student] is looking at two schools with similar caliber, and one has better housing, [a student] is probably going to go to that one,” Wesley said.
Hudnall also said as the University attempts to recruit high-quality graduate students, the assistantships graduate students receive for aiding in teaching or research are going to have to be increased.
“If the assistantships are raised, [the graduate students] can afford the housing,” Hudnall said.
Tommy Smith, associate director of the Office of Budget and Planning, said as of fall 2002, the average graduate assistant stipend was $12,738. The average graduate assistant stipend at 34 peer universities is $15,604 — making LSU’s stipend $2,866 below average.
To bridge this gap, LSU began allocating money to enhance graduate assistant stipends in 2001 and started a tuition exemption program this year.
An end in sight?
Patterson acknowledged the graduate and family student housing issue is far from over.
Once the task force makes a decision, they will present it to Chancellor Mark Emmert and the Board of Supervisors and it will be up to their discretion, Patterson said.
“My pie in the sky dream would be we come up with a big chunk of change, I don’t care how as long as [the residents] have a safe and great place to live,” Patterson said.
As for Varnado’s apartment, Patterson said in an e-mail Varnado had never reported the crack, the door or the stained shower.
Varnado said she rarely sees any maintenance staff around the apartment, but received a phone call from her resident manager yesterday and said someone is supposed to come by to make repairs.