Are you bored by the idea of living in a dorm? Were you assigned too poor of a lottery number to live in any of your preferred (or any) of the residence halls? Consider choosing a tent as your living unit for next year!
As the campus population increases with each passing academic year, a new question emerged: how will Elizabethtown College house all of these new students? In August, the undergraduate class of 2027 was made up of 546 students– a 13% increase from the year before and the most since 2009.
The idea arose to lay out eight rows of five tents on the Dell lawn between Schlosser and Myer Residence Halls. This new community will be called the Rider Tents, named after Etown’s beloved president, Elizabeth “Betty” Rider. With so much useless greenspace taken up by the Dell, it must have been an easy decision to build these unusual independent living units on top of it.
Each tent has an area of 30 square feet. It has four beds, meaning that up to four people can apply for a unit together. The room also comes with a table and four chairs as well as four desks. There will be no indoor plumbing; Porta-Potties and outdoor showers will be available for tenters to enjoy. A hot plate will be provided to each tent for cooking purposes, and food can be stored in one of the College’s micro-fridge units. There are no power outlets in the Rider Tents, so residents will have to come prepared with their own.
Many third-years and fourth-years are unable to secure rooms in either of the Vera Hackman Apartments or the Schreiber Quadrangle. The former can only hold 92 students, and the latter has room for 128. There are benefits to living in these communities. For example, one is forced to learn certain important skills, such as cooking and cleaning. Living in a space with three other people also forces roommates to utilize strong communication skills, compromise on certain issues and create agreements as to who is going to do each chore. The construction of the Rider Tents gives more upperclassmen the opportunity to learn these skills.
Rising third-year digital media production major Adam Dalle Pazze originally jumped at the opportunity to live in a tent, but now he is having second thoughts. “I would have rather stayed in a dorm than in a tent. I don’t know how they’ll keep us warm on a 15 degree night in January.”
These tents do boast high-quality, high-efficiency heating units, but they can only be used from August until September. They do not come with air cooling units. Bringing a fan is strongly discouraged by the Residence Life team, as the tents can easily be blown over by a strong breeze.
Elise McCann, a rising second-year biotechnology major, is intrigued by the idea of living the tent life. “I think it would be fine, as long as my neighbors aren’t partying all night,” said McCann. “If I’m going to be living outside, I want to have some peace and quiet under the starry night sky.”
Noise should not be a concern for prospective tenters: the tents are spread very far apart, almost five feet! This will keep too much noise from spreading to other rooms. Residents should have the ability to enjoy rural Elizabethtown’s beautiful night sky without being bothered by their neighbors.
So, who can choose a tent for their housing selection? Unfortunately for underclassmen, only rising third- and fourth-years can be tenters, just as how only upperclassmen can choose to live in the Apartments or Quadrangles. Residence Life expects these units to go quickly, though, so it is unlikely that a group of four juniors will be lucky enough to get a tent.
Are you interested in signing up to live in one of the Rider Tents? Becoming a part of this community exemplifies the college experience– residents can live with friends, sleep under the stars, and wake up to the coos of mourning doves and the chatter of squirrels in the morning. What could be better?
