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Concept:
The drawing shows how student housing might be designed on a typical site along a transit street. The concept shown is only one possible architectural treatment for such a project, but it shows how institutional character can be overcome with articulated volumes, creative use of conventional exterior materials, and active spaces at street level. |
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Our best student and faculty candidates increasingly cite the scarcity of good, reasonably priced housing as a primary factor in their decisions whether or not to come to UC Berkeley. Of those who do, many find themselves living miles from campus, isolated from university life and culture outside the work day. The problem is particularly acute for students: expanding the supply of student housing close to campus is necessary not only to help ensure all students are adequately housed, but also to provide the community of peers and mentors, and the access to campus resources, they need to succeed.
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Strategic Goals 
Capital investment shall improve the housing supply and strengthen intellectual community by:
- assuring two years of university housing to entering freshmen who desire it, and one year to entering transfers who desire it.
- assuring one year of university housing to entering graduate students who desire it.
- maintaining the current supply of university housing suitable for student families.
- partnering with developers to further expand and improve the rental housing supply.
- providing up to 3 years of university housing to new untenured ladder faculty who desire it.
- assuring high quality child care for the children of students, faculty and staff.
A Berkeley education is much more than what the student experiences through formal instruction. The few hours a week one spends in the classroom provides only the raw material for personal discovery. Our extraordinarily rich and diverse campus community provides the real-world 'laboratory' within which each student examines, evaluates, and incorporates the classroom experience into her own personal growth. Adequate student housing is a critical and indispensable aspect of this community.
However, in addressing this need, we should not look to the traditional residential cloisters of the liberal arts college. Students come to UC Berkeley because they seek the far more open and dynamic atmosphere of a large research university, and the social and cultural variety of a great metropolis. Rather, in our case, the role of student housing is to provide a base of educational and personal support within the stimulating, but often overwhelming, challenge of the Berkeley experience.
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Lower Division
The nature of this role, however, evolves as students progress through their education. For lower-division students, who are new to both independent living and the intense demands of university coursework, group housing in close proximity to the educational resources of the core campus is the most desirable solution. As well as convenience to campus, campus-operated housing also provides its residents with a wide range of on-site counseling, mentoring and academic support programs. Research indicates campus housing has a strong positive influence on academic performance, critical thinking ability, and personal autonomy.
Initiative 8.1
Provide two years of university housing to entering freshmen who desire it, and one year to entering transfers who desire it.
University operated group housing, with common study and social areas, enables new students to focus on their academic endeavors, while also providing venues for integrated service programs. To ensure these new undergraduate students have the best possible access to the academic life and resources of the university, this housing should be located within a mile of the center of campus, and should provide every resident with high-speed access to the campus information infrastructure.
UC Berkeley presently assures one year of university housing to entering freshmen and transfer students. However, university housing also offers significant advantages to second-year students, many of who are not yet declared majors and, therefore, are not yet fully integrated into the on-campus academic community. For these students, the residential community continues to play a valuable role in both mentor and peer support.
New undergraduate housing should include apartments for graduate students or faculty in residence: while formal advising and guidance programs are critical, new students also benefit from the informal experience-sharing and mentoring that graduate students and faculty who live on site can provide. New undergraduate housing should also include flexible spaces for lectures and seminars, as well as for group study: these spaces and events should be open to non-resident as well as resident students.
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Upper Division & Graduates
As they progress, students gravitate toward affinity groups based on their major fields of study or other shared interests. They also continue to mature and to acquire the social experience required to live as independent adults. By the third year, it is no longer necessary for the university to take as direct a role in creating a residence-based intellectual community. However, it is essential to assure these students continue to have access to suitable and reasonably priced housing.
Such housing is particularly important for first-year graduate students. Not only does the cost and scarcity of housing in this market make it more difficult for all our students to focus on and excel in their academic endeavors: in the case of first year graduate students, it also makes it far harder to recruit them in the first place. For graduate students, apartments are the right solution, not only because older students tend to prefer a less structured environment, but also because conventional apartments offer a wider range of delivery options, including partnerships with private developers.
Initiative 8.2
Provide one year of university housing to entering graduate students who desire it.
To ensure these new students have access to the academic life and resources of the university, this housing should be located within a mile of the center of campus or within a 20 minute transit trip of campus, by campus-operated shuttle or public bus or rail. In the latter case, it should be located within a short and safe walk of the nearest transit stop. New graduate housing should provide every resident with high-speed access to the campus information infrastructure.
Initiative 8.3
Partner with private and not for profit developers to continue to expand and improve the rental housing stock available to students.
Our first objective in these partnerships should be to assure suitable and reasonably priced housing for all first year graduates. Because all first year graduates may not avail themselves of this option, the balance should be made available to other upper division and graduate students.
The ambitious goals described above for both graduates and undergraduates would have a significant positive impact on student housing, by reducing demand on the private market. However, even once these goals are achieved, we should continue to monitor market conditions in relation to demand, and seek new housing initiatives that could make a significant contribution to intellectual community and the quality of student life.
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Faculty & Staff
There is substantial anecdotal evidence to indicate UC Berkeley is at a severe disadvantage in competing for the best faculty and staff candidates due to housing and child care cost. The university has already begun to address the long-term housing needs of faculty through its down payment and mortgage subsidy programs. However, these programs do not address the need for good rental housing, particularly for new faculty hires.
Initiative 8.4
Provide up to 3 years of university housing to new untenured ladder faculty who desire it.
This housing may be separate or co-located with the graduate student housing described above. In either case, it should be located within a mile or within a 30 minute transit trip of campus. If units remain after new faculty hires are accommodated, they should be made available to new postdocs and other staff. Longer-term housing solutions for faculty and staff, i.e. beyond 3 years, should be achieved through improved financial subsidy programs, not the direct provision of housing.
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Child Care
The campus has begun to address long-term child care needs through a new 125 space facility planned for the Southside. However, this facility is only a first step: roughly 200 children were on the waiting list in 2002, and nearly half of the 200 we now accommodate are in poor facilities. The UC Task Force on Child Care Policy and Programs has surveyed both internal and external best practices, and recommends that child care programs be recognized as a key factor in recruiting, retaining, and ensuring the productivity of students, faculty and staff.
Initiative 8.5
Include consideration of child care in future university housing projects.
Each new university housing site should be evaluated for its potential to include a child care facility: for example, in ground floor spaces which are often less suitable than upper floors for residential use.
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Near-Term Objectives
The goals described in the above initiatives are ambitious and long-term: not only do they require a substantial investment of capital, but only a fraction of the new units required can be accommodated on land presently owned by the university. While the actual pace of construction must be responsive to the dynamics of both housing demand and financial resources, the campus has endorsed in principle a set of objectives to be pursued within the timeframe of the 2020 Long Range Development Plan:
- By the end of 2020, increase the inventory of single undergraduate beds to equal 100% of entering freshmen and 50% of entering transfers and sophomores.
- By the end of 2020, increase the inventory of single graduate apartments to equal 50% of entering graduate students.
- By the end of 2020, increase the inventory of faculty apartments to 300% of the average number of new untenured faculty hires per year.
- Maintain the current number of university housing units suitable for students with children.
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Note:
The term 'university housing' as used in the above initiatives and objectives includes housing developed and managed by the campus, as well as housing developed and managed by others under the provisions of a campus ground lease. |
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