By Katie Huston

Collegian Staff

When he moved into the Howard Johnson Inn at the start of the semester, Brandon Rawnsley expected he?d be living in a dorm within the month.

?When I called, they said one or two weeks [in the hotel] at most, and then you?d be gone,? said Rawnsley, a sophomore English and Philosophy major who transferred this year from the College of Wooster in Ohio.

However, Rawnsley is one of 59 University of Massachusetts students who will spend the remainder of the fall semester living in the Howard Johnson on Route 9 in Hadley.

An incoming freshmen class of about 4,400, up from 4,222 last year, coupled with more upperclassmen choosing to live on campus, has created a housing crunch and forced administrators to place some transfer students and students who missed the housing deadline into hotels.

Ed Blaguszewski, the Director of News and Information at UMass, said the increased demand for on-campus housing shows that more students are interested in coming to the University.

?In some ways, that?s a good problem to have,? Blaguszewski said. ?People want to come to UMass. On the other hand, we want to be as accurate with our projections as possible.?

UMass is paying an extra $2,000 per student staying in a hotel this semester, as well as paying for the additional transportation costs. Housing students at the Howard Johnson costs about $3,700 total per student, per semester, while a double occupancy dorm room on campus costs only $1,702 per student.

However, UMass anticipates that the higher occupancy rates this spring should make up for the extra expenses. UMass typically has 500 empty beds in the spring. ?We?ll see how it shakes out, but we?re expecting it?ll be a wash, or maybe a little better,? Blaguszewski said.

At the start of the year, 315 students were living in four different hotels: the Campus Center Hotel, the University Lodge, the Hadley Quality Inn, and the Howard Johnson. Students have been moved into on-campus housing as space becomes available, and last Thursday all students still living in hotels were consolidated into the Howard Johnson.

The ?HoJos,? as the students have dubbed themselves, are clustered together on the first and third floors. Four resident assistants live in the hotel, and last night the University held a dinner for students in the hotel lobby.

?We try to provide some sense of living with your peers, as close to a residence hall community as we can create out there,? said Blaguszewski.

However, students say it?s difficult to foster a dorm-like environment in a hotel.

?They try to do stuff, but it?s definitely not as easy to meet people here as it is on campus,? said Jessica Saporito, a junior in her third semester at UMass who did not submit her housing application by the deadline. ?A lot of the kids here don?t keep their doors open.?

Sophomore Josh Boyden, a transfer student from Syracuse University of New York at Cobleskill, said that it?s hard to replicate dorm life with only five dozen students. ?If they had more people, it might be more of a good time, but you don?t get the on-campus feeling,? he said. ?It?s more of a private life here than it is in the dorms.?

Although the University has arranged for a bus to stop in the Howard Johnson parking lot, students say transportation is one of the biggest inconveniences of living off-campus.

The hotel offers a free continental breakfast, but students? meal plans force them to eat lunch and dinner on campus ? or skip real meals entirely. ?We don?t really eat [living] here. It?s so hard to get back and forth for a meal,? Rawnsley said.

His roommate Eric Zavadil, a sophomore political science major who transferred from Wichita State University, agreed. ?If it?s not Ramen, it?s probably peanut butter that we?re having here,? he said.

Zavadil says he sometimes gets sick of eating the same food provided by the hotel everyday. But eating breakfast on campus can be a huge hassle.

?All I did was wait for the bus, eat breakfast, wait for the bus again, and walk back from where they drop us off, and it was two and a half hours from door to door,? he said.

Other students opt to spend the entire day on campus. ?If you have a couple of hours in between classes, it defeats the purpose of coming home,? said Saporito. ?My roommate is there all day. She?ll go to the library and hang out ?til 5:30.?

Students have also complained about a lack of clear information from housing authorities.

?There?s no communication,? said Zavadil. ?The things that we hear from the administration are all very orchestrated to not give out any information.?

Saporito, Zavadil and Rawnsley are waiting for a desk and chairs that were supposed to arrive Monday. ?They?re supposed to give us a Microfridge, but we haven?t seen that either yet,? Saporito said.

Despite the inconveniences, students are enjoying several aspects of hotel life, including the air conditioning, large rooms, twice-a-week room service, larger beds, and private bathrooms. Students can also use the fitness room at the hotel, and they had access to the pool until it closed this week.?There was a TV already here, we didn?t have to lug TVs in,? said Saporito. ?It?s nice that it?s [the room] so big.?

And Zavadil said the hotel staff has gone out of their way to help students. ?They know we?re in a messed up place, and they?re really accommodating,? he said.

Blaguszewski said the University appreciates students? patience and flexibility. ?We know it?s an inconvenience, and it can be a hardship for students to live off campus, and we?re trying to do right by the students as best we can during the course of this semester,? he said.

The hotel?s four resident assistants have been holding weekly social events with food, and resident assistant Jason Bissonnette, a senior mathematics and statistics major, even e-mailed the popular college social network ?the facebook.com? to have Howard Johnson added as a UMass residence hall.

?We?re trying to make it home on whatever level we can, even if it?s something as small as clicking on what dorm you live in on facebook,? said Bissonnette.

Bissonnette has also created a website, http://hojo.jaybiz.net, which will offer resources and a message board for hotel residents.

Although the situation may not be ideal, students are making the best of it.

?If they could put me in Central or Southwest tomorrow, I?d do it like that,? said Zavadil, snapping his fingers. ?But at this point I can?t be disappointed that I was put here, because all the people I know on campus I met here or through people here.?

?We?re getting used to it. We kind of have to,? Saporito said. ?We make it dormey like, but at the same time I do wish I was on campus.?