Washington State University - Chinook Yearbook (Pullman, WA)

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Lucky to have enough dimes, Tanya Blouhm finishes her last load of laundiy just in time to find change for the dry¬ ers. Gary Foster photo Sprouting from the hills of Terre View Drive, The Meadows Apartments prepare to compete in the ever¬ growing renter’s market. Mike Anderson photo Housing 23 On vh

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C ombing the 15.5 percent decrease in enrollment from the full capacity level of 1980 and the 4 per¬ cent increase in available housing since then, Finch anticipated a 19.5 percent net drop in demand in 1994. As anyone who ' s ever had Econ 102 could tell you, when demand drops, so do prices. Enrollment was expected to go up again after 1994. William Bierbaum, director of housing and food at WSU, said enrollment would prob¬ ably reach full-capacity levels similar to 1980 around the year 2010, as the children of the Baby-boomers (the echo ) grow to college age. Students choosing to live off-campus were expected to benefit from the surplus. I think the student body is going to benefit as prices stabilize, Finch said, pre¬ dicting rent prices would come down. I think some people are getti ng away with more than they would in another market. However, the prices could not drop too much, he said, because landlords still had fixed costs, such as mort¬ gages and taxes, to recover. Petry, in his memo, said there is likely to be a depressed period during the 1990s, that may cause bankruptcies and or foreclo¬ sures of some of the rental properties. As the competition increased, newer and better- maintained untis were going to retain tenants, at the expense of run-down units and locations farther from campus. Finch said. We (landlords) are going to have to work harder, he said. The success of the Campus Commons North apartments was due to marketing, he said. The apartments were new (built during the sum¬ mer of 1985) and came with a variety of extras. But Campus Commons North was also an example of the increased competition for tenants, he said. Look at all the things they were giv¬ ing away. I think they had to work a little harder than they thought they would have to. At one point, the complex was offering different combi¬ nations of free use of a televi¬ sion and video cassette recorder and free use of the complex ' s tanning booth to lure people into signing leases for the spring semes¬ ter. The university ' s residence halls were unable to com¬ pete, and occupancy sank to a record-low 69.8 percent in the spring of 1986. To trim costs, the university moved to trim 1,000 beds from the system, which was accom¬ plished by closing Kruegel and McAllister halls, and designating Goldsworthy and Perham as temporary housing that would remain open as long as there was demand for space. □ Bryan Corliss Contributing Writer There is likely to be a depressed period during the 1990s, that may cause bankruptcies and or foreclosures of some of the rental properties. ' - Glenn Petry University operated apartments provide yet another option for stu¬ dents who want more independence. Mike Anderson photo 22 Housing

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a. Recovering alcoholics struggle to live an ‘alcohol-free’ lifestyle at WSU ... alcohol enabled me to be all the things I wanted to be and it allowed me to carry the illusion that everything will be better tomorrow, Judy said. The friends that knew me drunk or stoned had a hard time accepting me as sober, said Tom. My new friends that didn ' t know before, find it easier to accept me A lcoholism. A dis¬ ease and word packed with a so¬ cial stigma which creates fear in many, while slowly killing the lives of others. Those who manage to get sober, wake up to a world fil¬ led with social drinkers, keg- gars, and parties on the weekends — welcome to typical university life. Judy, a WSU graduate stu¬ dent, has been sober about five years. She realized her alcohol problem when she was only 20. I didn ' t decide to be an alcoholic, she explained. I have a disease and if I hadn ' t quit drinking, I would have been committed or dead. Acceptance is the first step to staying sober. It was hard to admit I was an alcoholic at only 20, she said. But once I took the first step, it got a lot easier after that. College life is probably not the best place to be for a prob¬ lem drinker. A recent alcohol survey of 1985 freshmen at WSU, indicates that 90 to 95 percent of the students drink alcohol or have tried alcohol. Thomas Greenfield, a coor¬ dinator for student services, said that the Student Affairs Alcohol and Substance Abuse Committee undertook a sur¬ vey of last year ' s freshman class. Overall, Greenfield couldn ' t indicate whether or not alcohol was still the num¬ ber one drug abused at WSU, but he feels other drugs are slowly coming into the pic¬ ture. There didn ' t used to be reports of such drug usage a few years ago, he said. The survey indicates about 35 percent of the new stu¬ dents reported getting drunk at least monthly prior to college. By the start of the freshman year, the equivalent percentage was 44 percent. About 26 percent of the freshmen indicated eight or more drinks at a sitting at least monthly during the past year, a level suggested by ex¬ perts as signaling high risk of unwanted consequences. WSU is not the only North¬ west university experiencing problems with high alcohol usage on campus. All across the region alcohol drinking runs rampant, even at some of the dry campuses. At Pacific Lutheran Uni¬ versity, of the 299 students surveyed, 7.3 percent of the freshmen males reported having more than eight drinks. In comparison, WSU Alcohol is often a major social stimulus at college parties. Drex Rhoades photo reported 11 percent of the male students having more than eight drinks. Currently, PLU has a dry campus alco¬ hol policy. The two Oregon universi¬ ties indicated similiar drink¬ ing behaviors. At the Uni¬ versity of Oregon, of the 175 total surveyed, 19 percent of the male students and six per¬ cent of the females admitted drinking in high quantities. Oregon State University re¬ ported 12 percent of the males and two percent of female students surveyed had con¬ sumed more than eight drinks. Greenfield explained that the statistics used here may be low but they document the trends in student drinking habits and the frequency in their drinking. Surprisingly enough, the Oregon and Washington universities had higher alcohol usage than the California universities, he said. 24 Staying Sober On the Prowl