Author: Kelly Neukom
“Spectacular.” “Posh.” “State-of-the-art.” “Huge.” “Ridiculous.” “Fortress-like.” “Excessive.” “Wonky.” “Pampersville.” “Glorious.”
While these adjectives could easily describe any of Hollywood’s over-the-top celebrity mansions, students have instead used them to describe a structure much closer to home: Rangeview Hall.
The brand-new residence hall opened January 19, is biggest new addition to campus in decades. Rangeview houses the most students of any Oxy residence hall (four floors housing 273 people-almost 100 more than Stewie, the now second-largest hall). It is the first residence hall to be built in 25 years (the last being Stearns in 1983, before most of the students currently attending Oxy were even born).
According to college officials, Rangeview cost $38.8 million to build. That doesn’t include the cost of the current renovation of Erdman, Wylie and Bell-Young (scheduled to be finished by fall semester of the next academic year). “Next fall, Rangeview will become a residence for juniors and seniors and the three newly renovated halls will reopen, increasing the number of students living on campus to 85 percent,” Samantha Bonar, Assistant Director of Communications said.
Such a high price means an increase in amenities for the entire Oxy community. With the opening of Rangeview comes a slew of sought-after services: doubles and clusters of singles with their own bathrooms, one laundry room per floor, a three-level underground parking garage with 235 spaces, ID key cards in place of regular keys, free microwaves and mini-fridges for each room, multiple lounge and study areas, and multimedia classrooms. Perhaps the most talked-of feature is a fitness room, equipped with treadmills, stationary bikes and ellipticals, along with various weight machines.
“Everything is here,” Rangeview resident Darcy Garretson (senior) said.* “It’s so luxurious compared to other dorms.”
“I think the school did an excellent job with the recreation room, the lounges, the study rooms and the fitness center,” Corey Abbott (senior) said. “I also appreciate the set-up of the triple single rooms, which encourage interaction amongst roommates while still allowing for periodic separation.”
Abbott’s suitemate David Zeller (junior) loves the modern feel of the place. “With thermostats, new lighting fixtures and other hardware, Rangeview doesn’t give the same Greatest Generation feel as some of the other residence halls,” he said.
But despite the fact that many residents are singing Rangeview’s praises, there have been problems with getting the hall up and running. Although each room has its own thermostat, many still aren’t working a week-and-a-half after residents have moved in. Many students, including Rangeview RA Erik Quezada (junior), have no access to hot water. “I haven’t had a proper shower in a while,” he said.
Other glitches include broken elevators, TVs without DVD players, computer rooms without printers, and a kitchen that students can’t use.
“When building [Rangeview], I think they had their priorities a little mixed-up,” Lindsay Willems (junior) said. “For example, rather than having things that I personally deem essential-a kitchen and printers-they found it necessary to put a total of about eight flat screen TVs in [the recreation rooms]. Give us printers, please!”
Rangeview RA Debbie Weiser agrees with Willems. “In my opinion, the most glaring disadvantage to living in Rangeview is not having access to a kitchen,” she said. “While there is a giant kitchen in the building, students do not have access to it, as it is only for big catered events. It would be really nice to have a stove and oven!”
Zeller hopes to have more amenities added to the recreation room. “Right now, our common room needs a pool table and a ping-pong table,” he said. “Most of all, we need a piano. I really enjoyed playing the piano in the Erdman common room last year, even if it was only rarely.”
The rush to finish the hall has also given residents pause. “I feel like the administration may have rushed move-in,” Sarah Molina (senior) said. “As with most new projects, the first couple of months are often shaky. However, technical malfunctions, only one working washer-and-dryer pair per floor of students and small things like a lack of hot water and wet paint in the stairwells makes it clear that Rangeview is still a work in progress.”
Other telltale signs of last-minute construction are apparent even in private spaces. “I have noticed a couple things about our room that make it seem that the finishing touches on the hall may have been a bit hurried or careless,” Zeller said. “In particular, I have a boot print paint stain on my carpet and one of our sink faucets is crooked.”
Director of Residence Life and Housing Services Kecia Baker acknowledged the challenge. “We wanted everything to be perfect, but with the timing of construction and residents checking in, every issue had not been resolved,” she said.
Many students agree that the remoteness of the hall from the main quad and the academic halls is also somewhat of a drawback. “[Before moving in], I was excited to see if Rangeview was impressive enough to be worth the walk to the rest of campus,” Andrew Blythe (senior) said. “[Now,] I feel like I’m not even attending Occidental. When I first moved in here, before classes started, I didn’t even feel like I had come back from break.”
Other residents echo Blythe’s feelings. When asked what could be improved about the hall, Karen Baughn (senior) said, “Lay it all on top of Haines.” Zeller expressed his hopes that a shuttle would be running in the spring semester to spare people the walk from the main quad.
Although Baker said there are plans to put a coffee cart in Rangeview “soon,” some students don’t mind the walk to the Marketplace.
“It is a long walk from campus proper, but it’s a nice, pleasant walk that gets the blood pumping,” Quezada said. “It’s no worse than a walk to Norris or Braun, [and] with those, there is that huge . . . hill.”
Quezada thinks that Rangeview’s amenities actually encourage residents from other halls to visit. “A lot of other students [from other halls] already want to come and use the gym and the facilities [Rangeview] provides,” he said. “I think in that aspect, other students won’t feel cut off from the [Rangeview] residents and vice versa.”
Zeller said that if someone feels cut off, it is because he or she hasn’t tried hard enough to reach out to others. “As with any residence hall, it’s your call if you’re going to be a hermit or not,” he said. “[My suitemates and I] have had other students over to hang out and there’s nothing stopping us from going to visit other halls.”
In order to enter Rangeview, however, all students must have a ID card, which is a problem in itself. Residents are on the fence about the new cards being used in place of regular metal keys.
“I hate the key cards,” Baughn said. “I have to use them to get them out of every door. There’s always a red light with negative beeping whenever I try to get in somewhere. It makes me feel like I’ve failed. Make the key readers less . . . sensitive (or more sensitive, whatever makes them work),” he said.
Garretson agreed, saying she had locked herself out of her room twice already because of the keycards.
“I’m a little hesitant about the locks,” Scott Nishinaka (sophomore) said. “If we lose power, all the security locks won’t work and we won’t be able to go anywhere but out.”
Baker disagreed, noting that locks are actually battery powered, so there will not be a problem with them if there is a power outage.
Some Rangeview residents also worry that the large, hotel-like feel of the place hinders community and encourages anonymity. “I don’t really like the isolated feel of the dorm,” one resident said. “It’s such a big building, so I don’t see as many people around as I used to.”
Quezada has noticed this drawback as well. “This type of environment is not conducive to building a go
od community,” he said. “Any other hall on campus has us beat on that.”
Weiser said the large number of people living in the hall makes the RA job much more challenging. “[As an RA,] you have to put in a lot more thought to planning programs that can potentially reach 273 people,” she said. “That is a lot of people! You have to be creative with your funding sources and try and stretch what money you have to program for the most number of people.”
Residents have varying opinions on what could be done to create the feeling of community Rangeview so desperately lacks. Quezada thinks having more RA’s would help, as there is currently only one RA per floor. “It’s hard to be a resource when there are so many [people],” he said.
Garretson believes that if students had access to a kitchen, it might give residents the chance to talk to each other and get to know one another. Molina requested that there be more places in which students can gather and have fun.
“Put something nice in the courtyard to bring students out,” Molina said. “Remember that this is a residence hall for students, not a resort, and make it so the doors can be left open. Rangeview is our home; let us bring some community and character to it.”
Baker said to “think of Rangeview in a different way” than other halls.
“The physical makeup of the building is different from any of our other communities,” she said. “The philosophy of Rangeview is to transition into more independent living. This goes with college student development theories to prepare students to enter ‘the real world.’ That is why the original plan was to target seniors and juniors,” she said.
“I know that [Rangeview] is different, and we have to take that into consideration with everything we do,” Baker said. “Some things that work in other halls may not work for Rangeview.”
Although the new residence hall isn’t perfect, “when you live in Rangeview, the good [qualities] definitely outweigh the bad,” Quezada said. “I think most people would agree with me on that.”
Whether students are positive or pessimistic about their new digs, all can agree on one thing-Rangeview Hall definitely changes campus dynamics, for better or for worse.
* = All students interviewed are Rangeview residents.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
