Dear Western Washington University Residence Staff,

As a resident of the Fairhaven Complex I would like to bring a few

things to your attention. The Fairhaven courtyard is located on the south
side of the Western Washington University campus in an area enclosed by
many tall trees and lush greens, making you feel somewhat like youre living
in a forest. The 12 dorm buildings surrounding the courtyard in an oval
shape where built in 1970. Making the structures over 45 years old. If you
compare these buildings to the recently renovated Communications building
and some of the other dorms on campus the dorms in the Fairhaven
community are outdated.
From the Outside
Each building in the Fairhaven complex is mainly made of cement with
some siding on the outside that is painted a grayish earthy color. Some
students that I have talked to describe the buildings as out dated and
depressing looking. With the lush greenery surrounding the dorm buildings
having the building be a more contrasting color such as red would make it a
more inviting atmosphere.
The red brick paved courtyard in the middle of the oval of dorm
buildings is a place where people walk to their stacks, walk to classes and go
to the Fairhaven dining hall. Some of the bricks are broken and sticking up.
Making it easy to trip sometimes. Ive seen a fair share of people stumble
and fall.
The courtyard is mainly walked upon by the people living in Fairhaven
and sometimes by people living in other dorms on campus. The people living
in the Fairhaven community tend to be more reserved and walk around in
groups. So when people are walking in groups it is usually easy to tell who
lives in Fairhaven and who is visiting. The people living in Fairhaven walk
through the courtyard quietly and respectfully whereas on the ridge people
walk around being loud not caring if they are being disrespectful to others.
From the Inside
The Ridgeway and Fairhaven complexes bear many differences. One of
those differences being the dorm set up depending on the dorm building on
the Ridge. Almost all of the buildings in the Fairhaven complex have the
same floor plan with dorm rooms in the suite style. In the suite style there
are either two or three rooms sharing a bathroom. There are also the
traditional dorm style where there are either about 6 or 8 rooms to a
bathroom. At Beta on the Ridge there are large bathrooms in the center of
each floor with four rooms attached. With the entrances to each room being

on the outside. From the bathroom you can walk and access all four rooms
attached. There are wooden sliding doors used to separate each room from
the bathroom. The average size of the rooms on the ridge in beta are
approximately 183 square feet.(WWU Beta) Whereas the two room suite
dorms in Fairhaven are approximately 147 square feet.(WWU Fairhaven) The
overall room size is much larger.
The set up in the Beta dorms on the ridge makes it much easier to
socialize in because there is much more space in the rooms and multiple
rooms for people to walk to and from to socialize with people. In Fairhaven it
is hard to socialize in the two room suite style rooms because the rooms are
so small. The three room suites are really the only rooms in Fairhaven that
you can really socialize and have a lot of people over and socialize. In
addition the two room suite style rooms in Fairhaven seem like little holes in
the wall and prison cells. Some freshman living in the Fairhaven dorms that I
have talked to say that the rooms feel very small and that they arent happy
with their rooms. These freshman that I have talked to also are freshman
that didnt even choose to live in Fairhaven in the first place because of the
room set up. Ninety-three percent of freshmen attending Western choose to
live on campus their first year at Western. Of this ninety three percent of
freshman twenty percent live in the Fairhaven complex which is the largest
residential community on campus. And only seventy-five percent of the
freshman got one of their requested housing choices. (WWU Quickfacts)
Most of the freshman living in Fairhaven that I have spoken to have said that
they did not put Fairhaven as one of their housing preferences.
How to fix it
Freshman live on campus so that they can get familiar with the
campus and so that they can socialize and meet new people. If the rooms in
Fairhaven where more open to socialize there would be much more
socializing which would make freshman happier. The way that the rooms are
set up on the Ridge are way more ideal for socializing with people. Not all
freshman want to socialize but if the rooms where set up like the ones on
the Ridge then those freshman can just close their doors between their room
and the bathroom. Which still makes the freshman who want to socialize and
the freshman who dont happy.
Making the Fairhaven dorm rooms bigger would require a complete
rebuild of the buildings. Doing so would incur additional costs to the
University; however with the rebuild, the dorms can be made more energy
efficient by utilizing resources such as solar or water power, thus reducing
our overall carbon footprint. Also, redoing the dorms could encourage more

students to select Fairhaven complex as their residence hall of choice, and

overall promote a more enjoyable freshman experience. Making the
Fairhaven dorm rooms bigger would also take a lot of time because you
would have to build new buildings. There are some solutions to this. Because
there is a significant decrease in students attending Western in the summer
the summer would be the most ideal time of the year to redo the rooms.
There are also many stacks in the Fairhaven complex and the
Fairhaven complex houses twenty percent of the freshman living on campus
so the buildings must be completed and built by the time fall quarter comes
around. (WWU Quickfacts) Because of this not all of the stacks can be
redone at the same time. Redoing the dorm stacks in phases is the solution
to this. Completing three dorm stack rebuilds each summer would make it so
that all of the stacks would be all rebuild in four years making is so the
project would be complete by the fall of 2019.
The size and set up of the Fairhaven dorms is something that needs to
be addressed. The happiness of the freshman living in the dorms is
important. Having the Fairhaven dorm rooms larger and set up more for
socialization would make it a lot easier for freshman. The statistics of the
number of freshman placed into one of their housing preferences would
increase along with the happiness of the freshman living in the dorms.
Sincerely,
Reilly Thomer

Work Cited:
"University Residences." Quick Facts. WWU Housing, 2015. Web. 18 Nov.
2015.
"University Residences." Fairhaven Complex. WWU Housing, 2015. Web. 18
Nov. 2015.
"University Residences." Ridgeway Beta. WWU Housing, 2015. Web. 18 Nov.
2015.