Students’ desires for air conditioning in dorms heat up

Tiffany Kim, a first-year undeclared student, leaves her room to
study. Kim, a resident of Rieber Hall, says she cannot study in the
heat of her non-air conditioned room.

The late-spring heat has brought the subject of air conditioning
to many students’ minds, some longing for the amenity in
their own rooms, and some looking forward to the luxury in future
residence halls.

The new dormitories, Rieber North, Rieber West and Hedrick
North, are all under construction and will include air conditioning
once completed, said Angela Marciano, associate director of
housing.

Edward Yen, a first-year molecular cell and development biology
student, said he feels that air conditioning in the dorms is worth
the money and effort. Yen lives in De Neve Plaza and said air
conditioning “makes you study better because it’s cold
and you don’t have to worry about the weather.”

The very problem that Yen speaks of is experienced in
Kim’s room.

“I think it is very unfair,” Kim said,
“because while we are … in the heat, other people are
putting on their AC full blast and freezing while we
melt.”

Sunset Village and De Neve Plaza are the only two on-campus
student housing complexes with air conditioning in every room.
Students in the older, high-rise type residence halls do not have
air conditioning.

Marciano said there have been some considerations for installing
air conditioning in current buildings, but such an action is still
in discussion phases.

Many students understand that adding air conditioning to non-air
conditioned buildings poses an economic burden. Leslie Mui, a
fourth-year psychology student, spent her early days as a Bruin in
Hedrick and Sproul halls. She pointed out that not every room is as
hot as others, and depending on where the sun rises in reference to
a room, certain spots in the building may not need air
conditioning.

Mui concluded that air conditioning is “nice but very
expensive.”

Other students shared Mui’s desire for a compromise and
suggested alternatives to placing air conditioning in every room.
Kotomi Nahjo, a first-year undeclared student, suggested putting it
only in select rooms within each building, rather than on every
floor.

“Then it would cost less and if it gets hot we can all
congregate in the lobby,” Nahjo said.

Nahjo also pointed out that she would consider paying more to
have air conditioning in her room.

Yen said students would be more than willing to pay extra for an
air conditioned room. With the demand so high and the supply so
low, the newly air conditioned rooms would likely fill up as
quickly as De Neve does now, he said.

Yen added that he has grown especially appreciative of air
conditioning in his room when he realizes”that friends living
in the residence halls are being bothered so much by the heat that
we have recently experienced.”