The 2018 Fall Semester at the University of Wisconsin has begun and freshman enrollment is at a historical high.

Because of limited dormitory availability, the University has again resorted to expanded housing to accommodate new students on campus. With this measure residence hall common rooms are converted to living spaces.

This year brought in six-thousand-eight-hundred-and-sixty-two students. Of those, ninety-two point five percent chose to live in residence halls. This has resulted in forty-five more students being placed in expanded housing than last year.

Each year, the task of navigating the University’s needs for expanded housing falls to the Division of University Housing.

“So, this year we did increase our expanded housing spaces a little bit. It fluctuates from year to year depending on how many students we have coming in and different populations and that coming in. We added about thirty expanded housing spaces this year,” Brendon Dybdahl, Marketing Director of UW Housing, said.

“Behind me is Sellery Hall, one of the majority freshman housing residence halls that has experienced expanded housing,” reporter Keith Bradley-Hewitt said.

Some of the other residence halls that have experienced expanded housing include Witte Hall and Smith Hall. In some cases, it’s not just first years in these halls that are affected by expanded housing, but house fellows too.

“I do have more residents this year. Last year I think I had about fifty-two residents and this year I have about fifty-five or fifty-six. And the same is for the other side. The other side used to have like forty-eight residents and now they have about fifty-two. So, it creates a little bit more work,” Megan Otto, UW house fellow, said.

According to the Division of University Housing, early completion of some renovations in Witte Hall has allowed for more students to find a more permanent space to live. Continued renovations may free up more space for expanded housing in the future.

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