Over the past several weeks, this year’s new break housing system for student workers has caused confusion and frustration as student summer employees received unexpected information about a lack of guaranteed housing.
On May 5, several students who previously accepted jobs as summer student employees received notice that the Break Housing Review Committee had determined their summer employment positions did not qualify them to receive campus housing this summer. Some were told that they qualified for early move-in housing but not housing during Sections I and II of Carleton’s summer break (between June 9 and Aug. 23).
Student summer employees with positions at Gould Library, Mail Services and Information Technology Services (ITS) in particular were not considered eligible for guaranteed summer housing on campus. A message from the Break Housing Review Committee on May 5 said, “The Committee determined that students who are hired for Sections I and II would not need to live on campus in order to fully participate in the position,” and suggested that student employees look into off-campus housing options. At this point, many student employees applied for “extenuating circumstance” summer housing in order to be housed on campus during their on-campus employment.
These responses result from this year’s summer housing process, which was different from previous summers, sparking confusion and concern from both student employees and employment supervisors.
In a written comment to The Carletonian, Director of Residential Life Andrea Robinson said, “A Break Housing Review committee was established in the Fall of ’24 with the purpose of better understanding all of the moving parts involved in housing students on campus during break periods. In addition to the experience of students, the committee also began an analysis of what types of employment, research and internship opportunities were provided for students during the breaks. Through that process, the college determined it was necessary to formalize gathering information directly from the supervisors in order to plan accordingly for each break.”
“This is the first year the college has gathered this information from supervisors, and the number of requests for student work positions outnumbered the amount of available beds,” Robinson commented.
This new system was implemented over winter break and spring break this school year, but has only gained attention recently as the summer housing denials have piled up. Robinson mentioned that, this summer, the break housing team prioritized student housing in campus houses with air conditioning and kitchen access, a departure from previous years. The new committee also assigned different campus jobs levels of housing priority.
During a CSA meeting on May 18, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Carolyn Livingston said that neither she nor Residential Life were involved in the prioritization process, mentioning that her Dean of Students office summer employee job was one of the positions marked as ineligible for summer housing.
“[The committee members] have a rubric where they decide what positions are prioritized for the summer. I know research [jobs] were [prioritized], students who are doing Lighten-Up, students who are doing SLAI [Summer Liberal Arts Institute]… and students who are doing CLAE [Carleton Liberal Arts Experience] as well,” Livingston said.
The summer positions that did not receive guaranteed summer housing were identified as low-priority by that rubric.
A “Student Collective Statement,” written by concerned students, argues that student employment departments were not adequately made aware of the possible lack of housing. Lucy Ramsey ’27, who has been involved in organizing the student response to summer housing instability, provided a statement to The Carletonian.
It reads, “When those three departments [the library, Mail Services and ITS] hired their summer workers this year, they had very little reason to believe that their workers would suddenly be denied the chance to apply for housing. Sure, the school had mentioned that some jobs would be prioritized over others, and they were told that they should report how many workers they wanted; but the library had been allowed to hire their usual number of workers just that winter, and for many summers and winters before that. And an in-person, 8:00 a.m. — 5:00 p.m. job would surely require housing. So the students and supervisors believed that the school would give them housing, as they have always done. For months, there was no indication otherwise.”
The full “Student Collective Statement” will be available for public access on the Carleton Student Collective Instagram page by May 22.
On May 18, Livingston said that supervisors had been informed of the housing possibilities in advance and that the new housing plans had been announced over a year ago, but she did mention the fast-paced timeline for the summer housing likely caused issues.
“What we also told the supervisors, as well, is, ‘You should not promise positions until all of this is complete,’ but it was a tight timeline, probably too tight. It’s something that we can correct the next time around. There’s not anything that we can correct now.” Livingston said.
Many student job listings had been posted and accepted by students before the May 5 denials of housing eligibility for certain departments.
The job listing for “Break Mail Services Clerk,” for instance, was published on the Carleton website on Apr. 27 and states that “Work is Monday through Friday, and lasts from the end of Spring Term to the start of Fall Term,” adding that the job must be performed on campus. This job would fall under Mail Services, the department that was denied employee housing eligibility because “students who are hired for Sections I and II would not need to live on campus in order to fully participate in the position” according to a May 5 email. No information about possible housing insecurity appears in the job posting.
During the May 18 meeting, Livingston said that, in the future, a position’s housing eligibility will likely be determined before job listings are posted, and that the listings will likely be required to state whether campus housing is assured as a part of the job.
In her comment, Robinson also said that, in future years, this process will likely be more streamlined, informed by this year’s example.
“Some issues for the summer were anticipated due to the limited number of beds available, as well as the tight timeline needed to balance supervisors’ requests for housing and the student summer housing request process. This new process has certainly provided a great deal of insight that will assist in making things smoother in the coming years,” Robinson commented.
This year, the college improvised additional housing following the initial backlash. Ad-hoc additional student housing that will open after Reunion was announced by Livingston in the May 14 Carleton Today. Employment supervisors had been made aware on May 12.
“Due to a higher than usual volume of on-campus student employment requests for the summer, additional campus housing has been made available between Friday, June 26, and Sunday, August 23,” the announcement read, Applications for this additional summer housing were due later that day.
According to Robinson’s comment, as of May 18, the “additional location to be opened on June 26 is still being determined.”
While this change will provide more student housing for the Section II period, student worker housing during senior week and Reunion remained uncertain.
“[The additional June 26 housing] just felt like a pretty unsatisfactory compromise to all of us [student organizers], because two weeks is still a really long time. So [after May 12], we really started to kick off the protest plan…,” Ramsey said. “We coordinated with the [St. Olaf Student Union of Workers] who released the statement on their Instagram. We decided to do the Friday [May 15] protest on Wednesday [May 13], so we did have to go really fast.”
Ramsey said that this summer’s housing issues are representative of a larger problem, one she hopes will be emphasized by the mobilization around summer housing.
“It might not directly affect you this time. But, there are a lot of students beyond the [ones] in question here, who have been told that they can’t get housing at certain moments… What has happened here is a product of an administrative system where students and workers don’t have much of a say in how housing is distributed and where the system has a pattern of not responding very well to student needs,” she said.
In preparation for the May 15 protest, Ramsey and several other student organizers wrote messages on campus whiteboards and distributed posters.
On the morning of May 15, Livingston sent a campus-wide email providing more detail about the summer housing situation.
“Of the more than 300 student work positions submitted by supervisors for housing prioritization this summer, 26 were not approved for housing during the period spanning commencement and Reunion. Students could still be considered for housing by applying through the extenuating circumstances option.” Livingston wrote in the email.
Shortly after Livingston’s message, an email announcement from student organizers, sent by Junyoung Benjegerdes ’26, invited students to join the planned protest that afternoon, reading, “Multiple departments have been refused housing for student workers for two weeks over the summer in order to prioritize alumni for Reunion. Admin is expecting students to be functionally unhoused while working for Carleton over the summer.”
At 11:00 a.m., a group of over 20 students gathered outside of Laird. Ramsey began the protest with a short speech. The group progressed into Sayles, collecting more students along the way. In Sayles, more students gave speeches through a megaphone from the second-floor balcony. After that, the group marched to the Residential Life office and then the Dean of Students office. There, Zack Shawn ’26, a student involved in the mobilization efforts, gave a speech. Shawn criticized the perceived prioritization of housing alumni above student workers during Reunion.
“They [the administration] want those [denied student employee] beds to go to alumni who will pay $800 to sleep in Musser for some reason!” Shawn said.
Shawn also mentioned that student workers are limited by the student employee wage and the difficulty of finding housing near campus, especially on such late notice.
“Carleton makes it impossible for anyone else to afford housing over here [in the area around the college],” Shawn said.
This point echoed frustrations raised by Ramsey. Last summer, when she was a student library worker, Ramsey was unable to secure on-campus housing for two days during her summer employment. During those two days, she and another student worker could only find temporary housing at a hotel that required them to walk 40 minutes along a highway in order to get to their campus jobs.
“Transportation is very hard if you don’t have a car, and it’s very expensive. It [cost] half a week at least of pay just for one weekend,” Ramsey said.
On the evening of May 18, Livingston attended a CSA meeting where several concerned students, including several of the students involved with organizing the May 15 protest, asked questions about the summer housing situation. She said that, although 26 positions were judged ineligible for student housing, after all of the forms were considered and final decisions were made, only four students were denied housing, two of which were graduated seniors not working in a prioritized position.
“Probably what could have happened, or what should have happened, is that we focused on the supervisors and made sure that they did their process right. Some additional information should have come to [students] as well…” Livingston said. “At the end of the day, everybody except four have housing.”
Livingston’s comments were criticized in the “Student Collective Statement” sent to The Carletonian on May 19.
“Dean Livingston said that four students were denied housing, but this only includes students whose applications were denied. More than a dozen other students were told not to apply for housing at all. A significant number of them had already been hired and told they would get a spot on campus,” the statement claims.