Student Issues with Housing and Administration
In February of 1987, students led a march from Hanover Hall to Finley Hall, the location of President George Johnson’s office, to complain of numerous grievances against housing.
Students complained of maintenance problems such as leaking ceilings and plumbing issues, broken elevators and locks for outside security doors, as well as cockroaches and mice in the dorms. Another major complaint was the lack of a consistent mail service leaving students without access to their mail for days at a time. According to a US Post Official, GMU had been uncooperative in meeting the officials to receive mail.
President Johnson selected four students from out of the crowd to discuss their greivances in his office. Despite no concrete committments from Johnson himself regarding the issue, the students felt as though this was a large step in the right direction to have their issues addressed as university officials could no longer ignore their greivances.
While there were no other complaints regarding housing conditions in 1987, students quickly took issue with a new housing policy announced in 1988. Within a week of students being told that freshmen would receive housing priority, students held a series of protests against the decision. This included a student-led rally, petitions to appeal the decision, and opinion pieces in the student newspaper
In the Spring of 1988, rumors began flying amongst the student body that only freshmen would be permitted to reside in the dorms the following year. Kenneth Bumgarner, the associate Vice President and Dean for Student Services at the time, was quick to squash these rumors informing students that freshman would simply be getting housing priority over upper classmen. This decision was made as freshmen have more difficulty adjusting to college life when not living on campus. A freshman who was living in the townhouses during the first semester reported that not being able to live on campus had greatly reduced her ability to make friends and impacted her grades due the inability to safely commute to the library at night. This information, however, did not squash the fear that students were having about potentially not having housing for the following semester.
On March 8th, residents of Commonwealth and Dominion dormitories staged a rally to protest against the proposed change. Many upperclassmen reported taking issue with the administration's decision stating that some students require financial aid to afford housing which can only be applied on campus. Other students didn’t take as much of an issue with the policy than the way the administration went about it with one student stating “the way the whole thing was executed with no student opinion was wrong.”
Bumgarner met with students outside the rally to answer questions they may have regarding the policy change. Students were apparently not satisfied with the answers they received from him as the next day fliers were distributed throughout the dorms urging students to make their complaints known, listing newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Broadside as well as Bumgarner's personal phone number. On March 10th, the administration reported that the plan for freshman to receive priority housing would not go into effect this year, and the discussion would instead be postponed until the 1998-1990 academic year.
Students were not short of gripes with the administration in 1988, as students were quick to take issue with the Universities add/drop system after waiting in a two hour line without any assurance of if their wait would be fruitful. After it was suggested by an instructor, one student decided it was time to take these complaints to President Johson. The student met with individuals in the add drop line to acquire signatures for a letter he planned to deliver to Johnson. After 3 days he had acquired over 500 signatures to take to Johnson.