Students move in to residence halls

About 6,000 students will move into University of Wisconsin–Madison residence halls beginning Wednesday, Aug. 29, and Thursday, Aug. 30.

Teams of housing staff and “Badger Buddies” — returning student residents — will greet new students and help with moving during move-in day. Residence halls open at 8 a.m.

The Division of University Housing takes great care to spread out the moving process to avoid logjams, but Madison commuters traveling on or near campus this week may want to rearrange their routes to avoid streets near the southeast residence halls along West Johnson Street and the west campus near the lakeshore residence halls.

To make it easier for the students and their families to unload their vehicles and move belongings in, the university will be altering the traffic flow on several campus streets Aug. 29-30:

• Lake Street between West Johnson and West Dayton streets will be closed to traffic, 6 a.m.-6 p.m.
• Observatory Drive from Charter Street to Babcock Drive will be restricted to move-in traffic only and will be one way westbound, 7 a.m.-6 p.m.
• Elm Drive will be one way northbound from Observatory Drive to Willow Drive, and Willow Drive will be one way westbound to Marsh Lane, 6:30 a.m.-6 p.m.

Several campus parking areas will be utilized for the move-in, which will severely limit parking available for employees. Permit holders in the affected lots are being notified about alternative locations in which they are being asked to park on the two busiest days.

And as usual, some students will be placed in temporary housing, but they will live as well as students with permanent room assignments, housing officials say.

About 150 students have been assigned to short-course residence halls and residence hall lounges because of this fall’s larger-than-expected group of incoming first-year students, says Alice Gustafson, assistant director of University Housing.

The university each year typically accepts more students than it can house because a percentage of students cancel housing at the last minute or leave the university during the first weeks of classes.

“We try to maximize the number of students who will have an opportunity to live in our residence halls, and that sometimes requires us to place students in temporary housing,” says Paul Evans, director of University Housing. “This process helps minimize overall vacancy rates and keeps student housing rates as low as possible.”

The expanded housing assignments come as no surprise to arriving students. Housing officials notified the students that they did not have a permanent room assignment, explaining the situation and how it will be resolved. “Our students have been patient and respectful, and their parents have been incredibly gracious,” Gustafson says.