Climbing up dirty cement stairs, Eve Hirschman made her way to her room in Bean on Move-In Day. The University of Oregon freshman walked down the narrow hallways of one of the oldest residence halls on campus on her way there. When she opened the door, she was shocked by how small her space was — even without her possessions moved in.

Adam Rosencrans was moving into his room in the just-completed Global Scholars Hall across the street. He took the elevator. The smell of new paint greeted him when he walked into his approximately 200-square-foot room — he was the first person to ever live in the room.

Nearly two terms later, Hirschman’s room is packed with her possessions. They are stacked on her desk, crowding her bookshelves and piled up to the ceilings on top of her wardrobe. She has spent a few hundred dollars on storage items by her estimate and more on postage to send home items that she simply had no space for. By contrast, the shelves in Rosencrans’ room are not even full.

“It’s like a whole different college experience,” Hirschman said. “(In GSH) they’re living in this deluxe room, their space is different, their lifestyle is different.”

The difference in living standards between the two halls goes beyond square feet. With its own librarian and a 24-hour library, resident UO faculty member and private study lounges on each floor, GSH is a departure from older halls such as Bean, which have basement study rooms and hallways scarcely the width of one’s armspan.­­­­­­­­ According to Assistant Vice Principal of Capital Projects Gregg Lobisser, the amenities offered in GSH don’t exist in any other building.

Lobisser, who was heavily involved with the conceptualization of the hall, said the academic amenities offered there are fundamentally changing the nature of residence halls.

“It’s the integration of curriculum and residential life,” he said. “We’ve achieved something there that is quite unique, maybe even nationally.”

Vice President of Student Affairs Robin Holmes said this integration of academics and residential life is beneficial to students.

“We know from research … that when students are engaged and able to live on campus and are involved in a living-learning environment, they do better academically,” she said.

It’s too early to tell whether students living in the newer dorms on campus perform better academically or are more satisfied with their college experience, but students’ living spaces undoubtedly have an effect on their morale and satisfaction level, according to the UO’s housing director, Michael Griffel. And in recently built residence halls like the Living Learning Center and GSH, it’s difficult to be unimpressed by the large rooms and amenities, he said.

“It’s important that when people walk into their rooms, it feels like a comfortable place to live,” he said.

For Hirschman, that is not the case.

“The rooms (in Bean) feel small. It’s a cramped space,” she said. “(With) everything from the showers to the central courtyard, it’s evident it’s designed by someone who was famous for designing prisons.”

According to Griffel, however, the campus living experience is defined by more than just room space. Studies at other universities (here, and here) have shown that students living on campus perform better academically and are more likely to graduate, and Griffel said UO Housing works to foster academic connections among all of its residence halls. Although the LLC and GSH have additional academic opportunities, Residential Freshman Interest Groups — in which students who live in the same hall take a set of classes together — are offered in old and new halls alike.

“Students are making connections in lots of our residence halls, and those academic connections seem to be strongly based on what the program is more than the facilities,” he said.

While the academic amenities in other residential halls are valuable, he called the ones in Global Scholars extraordinary. He said students living in the GSH have an advantage over other students, as they have closer access to the academic opportunities in their building. However, he says the advantage is slight and the access is not exclusive.

“The good thing about them is (that) the community space is on the ground floor and is open to all members of the community,” he said.

Although Hirschman has this access, she feels offering additional amenities in other halls makes the difference among the residence halls feel more substantial.

“Even (if you can use the facilities), you’d kind of feel out-of-place because you don’t live there,” she said.

Holmes said she would like to see all residence halls have the academic amenities that are in the LLC and GSH.

“We want students to have the type of experience they have in the Living Learning Center and Global Scholars Hall in all our residence halls,” she said.

The construction of GSH is just one step in the UO’s grand plan for housing. An $84 million proposal to build two new residence halls is pending approval from the Oregon legislature, and a decision will likely be reached in June. Should the plan be approved, the buildings’ conceptualization will start in July, with hopes of having the buildings complete in three years.

Older residence halls Hamilton, Walton and Bean are in need of renovation, but according to Lobisser, that process cannot begin until after the completion of the new buildings. The number of incoming students increases each year and because the three older halls house the most students, they cannot be taken offline to renovate. The plan, he said, is to complete the new buildings and move students out of older halls to renovate them one part at a time, beginning with Hamilton in three to four years and ending with Bean in nine to 12 years.

Holmes, who originally drafted the plan, said this is part of a larger vision to enhance the residence hall experience at the UO. However, she said the construction of new buildings and renovation of the old are not guaranteed to happen any time soon.

“There’s so many things you have to do (for project approval) that you can’t with any great certainty say that this is going to happen in 2018,” she said.

In the meantime, though, Griffel said quality in the dorms is defined in many different ways. Although space and modern amenities in buildings are a priority, he said the overall college experience is shaped more by academic success and communities than where one lives.

“It’s the experiences we have,” he said. “And sometimes nice, new shiny things facilitate good experiences, and sometimes they don’t.”

For Rosencrans, there are drawbacks to living in GSH. The rooms can feel clinical and the close-knit community found in older dorms is more difficult to build, he said. However, he would not choose to live anywhere else. With all factors taken into account, he said living in GSH is giving him an advantage.

“I think that I’m having a completely different experience than a lot of people are in their dorms,” he said.