Laura Penny will have to move out of Runkle Hall by January -- and she's not happy about it.

"After first hearing about the university's plans to ship every one of the 400 people living in Runkle Hall out to random places on campus at some point in the middle of the semester, I was shocked and frustrated," Penny said.

Though students are currently living in Runkle Hall, starting in January, it will be closed to renovate double rooms into two- or four-person suites. The suites will be the same as those in Leete and Holmes Halls.

Penn State spokesman Geoff Rushton said renovations to the hall were scheduled to begin last May, but were postponed after the university learned of the large incoming freshman class.

Many of the 330 students now living in Runkle are opposed to moving. Penny (sophomore-microbiology) decided to organize a "Save Runkle Hall" t-shirt and petition campaign to postpone the renovations until the end of the school year. Penny began the petition by going door to door in Runkle Hall. It now has more than 250 signatures and will be sent to housing officials later this week.

Kathy Krinks, assistant director in the Office of Housing, said all students who currently live in Runkle

double rooms received a supplemental contract and were placed in doubles as a consideration.

"By the terms of a supplemental contract, these students would have been asked to move anyway," she said. "We thought upperclassmen would be much happier in traditional rooms in Runkle for a semester than in 10-person lounges."

Rushton said students placed in Runkle had "willingly submitted a supplemental housing contract for the fall." The students were then notified of the renovations and given the opportunity to opt for supplemental assignments instead and no one objected.

Laura Reynolds (sophomore-division of undergraduate studies) said she has already made friends in Runkle.

"I don't want to move into a new building and be considered the 'new girl' and have to start back at the beginning," she said.

Krinks said Runkle's 10-person lounges have already been vacated, and the housing office is now looking for rooms to accommodate its residents.

"All students have to be gone by the end of the fall semester, but whether they move earlier or later in the semester is their choice," she said.

Reynolds said moving during the semester might hurt her academics and added that she worries about transporting her belongings to a new room.

"It would be hard to move my stuff since I have no car here and my parents both work," Reynolds said.

Others like Whitney Whitehead (sophomore-business) say that moving will be a complete inconvenience no matter when or where she has to move.

"If it is before break, we are going to have that inconvenience during finals, which will interrupt our studies," she said, adding that if the move occurs over break, she will have to find storage or take her belongings home and then back.

Krinks said free storage will be available to students in their new buildings.

Still, many residents are especially frustrated that they will feel the effects of a freshmen class that is unprecedented in size.

"It's not the fault of 400-some upperclassmen that Penn State insists on overbooking its freshmen class by thousands and has nowhere to put them," Penny said.

Students who are moved from Runkle to another room will be credited $195, Krinks said.

Runkle residents will "have their first choice of rooms in the spring," Rushton said, adding that there will be "plenty" of available double rooms for displaced residents.

Penny said although the residents of Runkle Hall jokingly refer to themselves as the "outcast dorm", they aren't prepared to leave.

"Guess what Penn State? Outcasts or not, we like it up here, and frankly we're not leaving," she said.

The hall is expected to re-open for the fall 2007 semester.