The University has strongly denied claims that the recent expansion in student numbers, which will mean that no first years get to live in college, will harm college spirit. A statement released by the internal communications department of the University stated that
Worries about the effects of these moves have been about a long time, but the college spirits survived when second-years could no longer be guaranteed a place, it survived when no second-years could have a place, it survived at the turn of the century when finalists could no longer be guaranteed a place, it survived when no finalists could live in, despite claims by DSU that this was turning the colleges into halls of residence.
Many students claimed that not being able to guarantee accommodation to all first years would see the end of college spirit, but they were wrong. After all, we'd been doing that in St Cuthbert's Society for years by giving people non-residential places, and it never did any harm.
So I don't see why not letting any first years live in should affect college spirit either.
A trawl through an old prospectus revealed that the non-residential places seemed to be a way that the University could define one thing as another and so avoid losing its broad generalisation that all first year students will be guaranteed a place in college
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On comments that the colleges were now only halls of residence anyway, the University spokesman replied that it was clear from the name that they were colleges, or societies, and that if they had wanted halls of residence they would have called them that.
Despite the expansion in student numbers, many among the student body have been surpised at the news that, as of next year, no students will be able to live in their college. One Collingwood student said Well, it's ridiculous - the maths doesn't even work. No matter how many people the university piles on, there's still rooms available in college.
The University has issued a lengthy statement in response to student queries, one interesting excerpt from a leaked draft of this statement, and an excerpt that doesn't appear to have made it into the final document, being:
We remained concerned by the 'halls of residence' accusations and have determined to tidy this up by moving to a situation where no students have residence and so it will become self-evident that this claim is unjustified. The colleges will be used throughout the year as conference accommodation, to which the recent program of refurbishment funded through the previous decade's residence charge increases has made them eminently suitable and profitable.
(Can you tidy this up a bit in the final version, please)
University officials claim that not having student accommodation is not unusual, and point to a group of comparator institutions that do not have any either, of which the Open University, a somewhat unique case, was the only one we'd ever heard mentioned with Durham before. Claims by DSU that this comparator table misses the point entirely have been ignored by the University.
Applications to the two independent colleges, which through careful work have managed to keep student numbers to a reasonable level, are expected to take another steep rise as a result of this decision.