New undergraduate housing is going to be built at University Park.

Is this a dream?

Happily, plans for new dorms took another step toward becoming reality when Penn State's Board of Trustees approved the preliminary sketch plans for Eastview Terrace.

The new residences, scheduled for completion in fall 2004, are a welcome solution to the housing shortage that had plagued Penn State for as long as many students and alumni can remember.

The design for the dorms, which will have a maximum of five floors, will aid those moving in and out of buildings. The current dorms have only one or two elevators, which causes a large amount of congestion. The easy answer is to walk, but how many times can a person carry heavy luggage and equipment up and down seven, eight, nine or more flights of stairs?

These difficulties will be alleviated for the residents of Eastview Terrace.

For the past few years, there have been vehement complaints about the housing system. Penn State has tried to address some of the criticism by instituting an online system for housing registration Previously, those who wanted to live in the dorms had to physically go to Shields Building to submit a request.

The online system is an improvement in the way the contracts are distributed. It did not solve the problem of a large number of students not obtaining a housing contract, however, because the root of the problem is that the numbers of incoming students are rising while the number of dorms remain stagnant.

If new dorms are built, supplemental housing may not happen anymore. Many students now receive this housing, which for the most part consists of a group of people living in the study lounges of dorms. Study lounges are just that — places to study. They are not living quarters for displaced students.

Eastview Terrace will have 775 students living in it. That number would more than cover all of the freshmen who began last semester in supplemental housing.

It seems that the new undergraduate housing should take care of all of the trouble regarding housing. There is one problem though. The number of students who begin their Penn State career at University Park is growing each year. There was an increase of more than 600 freshmen this year in Happy Valley.

Until 2004, the amount of undergraduate housing shall remain static, while the number of students keeps rising. The ways to compensate for that are limited. Either more students will be outright rejected for housing contracts or more will be given supplemental status.

The construction of Eastview Terrace is a step in the right direction toward solving the housing problems. But, more has to be done on the part of Penn State to come up with a more permanent solution. If the number of students continues to rise, Penn State students will revert to the stage they are now -- living in study lounges.