Three’s company, too

During their freshman year, sophomores (from left) Stephanie Fitzpatrick, Erica Myrick and Kaitlyn Parry won the 2003 Triples Room-Decorating Contest in Russell D residence hall.

4:53 p.m., Oct. 12, 2004--Even Chrissy, Jack and Janet, of TV sitcom fame, would have to agree that while three may be company, in a room designed for two, it can also be a challenge.

UD faces that challenge at the start of each new academic year since on-campus housing is guaranteed to all incoming freshmen who apply for housing by May 1. For Fall 2004, the demand from freshman who applied for on-campus housing was greater than the number of spaces available. As a result, some students have to be assigned to extended housing or are “tripled,” living three to a room designed for two.

This fall there are extended housing “triples” in five complexes--Rodney on West Campus, Russell on East Campus, Smyth Hall on South Central Campus and Ray Street and Pencader on the Laird Campus. Students in extended housing receive a 25 percent rebate on housing costs for each full week until a permanent space is found. Students do not have to move when they are offered space.

Most triples are able to split up before the end of the fall semester, but many opt to remain together, in part, because they get a lot of help from Residence Life in trying to cope with limited living space. Students in triples are guaranteed reassignment to a freshman space by spring semester.

Linda Carey, director of student housing assignment services, said during 2003-04, 52 triples or 156 students were still assigned to triples at the beginning of spring semester mostly because they liked their roommates and had adjusted to living in a triple.

“It was a shock at first,” freshman Christina Read said when she found out she was “tripled.” “But, you learn to compromise and work on fitting everything into one small space. The good thing is I’m meeting a lot more people.”

Residence Life staff members have been trained to help mediate conflicts, answer questions, provide support and have created a special program just for students living in extended housing called the Triples Assistance Program (TAP), coordinated by Samantha Lopez, complex coordinator for the Russell Complex.

(The TAP web site can be found at [www.udel.edu/reslife/students/tap.html]).

Lopez said the best way for new triples to learn how to deal with the situation is to interact with people who are going or have gone through it. She said that’s why TAP offers social activities, as well as counseling and assistance.

TAP programs include:

Assistance in managing conflicts beginning with the facilitation of an effective roommate agreement;
Partnering with parents and providing support during move-in and Freshman Parents Weekend;
Supporting Housing Assignment Services during the de-tripling process;
A free subscription to “Three’s Company,” the triples newsletter; and
A UD fleece blanket for each tripled student and other incentives.

Those initiatives got underway Sept. 12 with a reception for tripled students. A calendar of events can be accessed on the TAP web site.

“Tripling problems that arise aren’t problems of compatibility, Lopez said. Really, the problem is a lack of communication. The TAP program gives students the skills and resources they need to facilitate communication, because we realize that skills come with life experience, our initiatives are very interactive,” she said.

Resident assistants and hall directors can help triples draw up roommate agreements for things like guest visitations, using each other’s things, eating each other’s food, taking accurate telephone messages and cleaning. The Three’s Company newsletter gives them strategies for living in close quarters with advice like—“Talk it out, get help if you need it, compromise, pick up your stuff, negotiate study and sleep schedules, don’t talk behind each other’s back.” It also outlines roommate agreements, has information about activities and about housing reassignments.

Read and her roommates have their yellow afghans with the inscription “UD 2004-2005” and are aware of the TAP programs that have helped other triples get over the rough spots. They are free to take advantage of the program or go it alone.

Chris McKeever, Scott Golden and Chris Jones were tripled last year. Golden said he and his roommates remained tripled through the fall semester and Winter Session and were winners of the triples’ decorating contest in Russell C.

TAP sponsors a contest in each residence hall with triples to find the threesomes that have the most efficient, effective and asthetically pleasing room design. Last year, representatives of Wal-Mart and Rubbermaid’ made presentations on how to get the best use out of the space available. Then, the rooms were judged and five winners chosen. Each received a Wal-Mart gift certificate for $50.

Lopez said one group put on a skit, another played music and served food and their entire floor helped.

It was McKeever, Golden and Jones who played music.

“We dressed in collared shirts and ties. Scott had his cello and I played guitar,” McKeever said. Golden said they played as people walked into the room, and then they served drinks and hor’s d’oeuvres. “We made our room very spacious for what we had to work with,” Golden said.

Sophomore Ashley Mason, who spent the fall of 2003 through Winter Session 2004 tripled, attended several TAP functions, and said she has no regrets that she shared living space with two other girls that year. “If I was a freshman, I would do it again. I had two friends I could do things with, and they had friends,” Mason said. She thinks of her time in Rodney C with Erin Fimbel, a sophomore sociology major, and Laura Todd, a freshman music major, as a happy adventure with only a few drawbacks. “We had fun.”

Mason is now rooming in Gilbert Hall with just one other person this semester, but said she will always be glad she tripled her first year at UD.

Photo by Duane Perry

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.