Tiny rooms, no AC haunt Edens quad

One week into the school year, some residents of Edens Quadrangle had their air conditioning shut down, losing one advantage of living in the quad.

Edens houses roughly 20 percent of West Campus residents, who often complain about living there, citing isolation, distance and small room size as disadvantages of the location.

According to data compiled by The Chronicle from floor plans on the Residence Life and Housing Services website, the average room size of an Edens double room is about 170 square feet. In comparison, an average double in Crowell or Keohane Quadrangles has about 220 square feet of floor space.

Sophomore Dan Shankle, an Edens resident, currently lives in one of the smallest doubles on West, with a floor size slightly larger than 150 square feet.

"How am I supposed to bring a girl back to my room if my bed is touching my roommate's?" Shankle said, adding that he cannot fit a decent-sized beerpong table in his room.

The size of Shankle's double combined with the 101-square-foot single across the hall still results in a smaller total size than some double rooms on West. In Few Quadrangle, one of the biggest double rooms on West measures roughly 280 square feet.

"I guess that's why they call it a lottery -everyone pays and somebody gets screwed," Shankle said.

And everybody does pay.

It takes about five minutes to walk from Edens 1C to the West Campus bus stop, which can be reached in about two or three minutes from Crowell, Few, Kilgo and Craven Quadrangles.

Despite the widespread complaints from people who get "stuck" living in Edens, however, some students find advantages to living there.

"I really like Edens," sophomore Sandeep Bhave said. "It's out of the way, there's not really the noise of classes and main campus-it's peaceful." He admitted, however, that the distance can be inconvenient.

Hull said he discounts the complaint that Edens is too isolated and distant from the rest of campus.

"[Edens] is not far away, it is just farther away," he said. "Distance is a relative thing."

Senior Beth Vanderslice said Edens' distance from the main quad was the reason she chose to live there instead of Crowell during her junior year.

"Edens was separated enough from

Main West that I could separate home from school," she said.

Hull said Edens is unique and is the greenest environment on West, describing the quad as the most "park-like" area. He noted that Edens is surrounded by trees and has picnic tables and a stream running through the center.

"If I was a student, [Edens] is where I would choose to live," Hull said.

The seven buildings that comprise Edens are home to 503 students, Jen Frank, assignments coordinator for RLHS, wrote in an e-mail.

This makes Edens the most populous quad on West, and it is also home to the sections of five University-affiliated fraternities and two selective living groups.

Many students agree the large number of people and organizations offers many venues for social events.

"There's a lot of stuff to do," said Bhave, who is a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. "Edens is where everyone is-I have tons of friends who live throughout it."

Sophomore Jared Haftel, Edens Quad president, said he hopes to positively impact the quad's social life. In mid-October the Edens Quad Council plans on sponsoring a "Garden of Edens" party featuring music, free barbecue and kegs.

"We want to create a situation where people in selective living groups and non-affiliated people can start meeting each other and can have a good time together," Haftel said, adding that he believes being in a relatively isolated community together allows students to become more familiar with each other.