F.G.H. relocation makes room for undergrads

The once-daily soundtrack of playground shrieks and laughter gave way to a new kind of commotion in the West Julia Martin (WJM) apartments as 36 graduate student families were displaced in June by an estimated 200 incoming undergraduate tenants.

“It just seems like year after year nothing changes for the apartments, and they just keep taking the housing away,” said Charlotte, a student who asked to remain anonymous due to her employment in university student housing. She, alongside her graduate-student husband and one-year-old son, were relocated over the summer.

The brick cul-de-sac in the center of MSU’s Family Graduate Housing complex has historically provided long-term rentals for married graduate students and parents. The complex is the second and latest to be repurposed as dorm-style housing for a mix of juniors, sophomores and freshmen, said Jeff Bondy, the director of university student housing.

“We try to most accurately predict what the needs will be for our freshman while also remaining flexible to best meet the demands of graduate and upper-division students,” Bondy said.

Issued a mandatory relocation notice in June, the majority of relocated tenants were placed in vacant units elsewhere in Family and Graduate Housing. The remainder either graduated or chose to complete their degrees elsewhere. Implemented almost precisely one year after the 2021 relocation of 78 faculty families, the move is the latest to erode the supply of dedicated family and graduate housing.

Charlotte and her family have lived in WJM since 2019. “Our little son was born in September of last year, so we were still living in WJM when I gave birth to him.” 

Raising a newborn on a college campus posed its own unique challenges. “Some of the bedrooms, I would argue, are about the size of a big walk-in closet,” she said. Nonetheless, Charlotte found WJM to be a safe community for her family.

“The kids could see when their friends were outside, and so you’d see the kids all gather,” she said. “As soon as one would go outside, they’d all go outside.” 

Alongside amenities such as FGH’s single swing set, Charlotte considered her multi-cultural community a valuable asset to raising a family in the WJM. “We had a couple of families from Mongolia, Vietnam, Nigeria. There was quite a handful of Native families from different reservations, especially in Montana."

Since moving out, Charlotte remembers her neighbors through a community-sourced recipe book compiled within the apartments. The cookbook highlights a globetrotting lineup of many different countries’ traditional foods.

“I’ve pondered what it would be like if I raised my child in ‘just’ Bozeman, Montana, where the population has got to be at least 90% white… I just really hope that my son can grow up with people of different nationalities and learn not to assume things about them because of their skin color,” Charlotte said.

While the change eats away at housing available for international graduate students, housing them remains a concern within Bondy’s office.

“We work closely with admissions, we talk to our partners in international programs and the dean of the graduate college to find a balanced inventory and provide space for those that need it,” Bondy said. 

Although a nightly chorus of play no longer dictates the neighborhood ambiance, the grounds remain abuzz. In fact, the apartments now may be more crowded than ever, with undergrads sleeping two to a room in most cases.

Even though it is “quite tiny, tinier than a dorm,” said Angelica Valentine, a freshman in pre-med, she enjoys a room to herself. Her apartment-mate, Madi Trawick, thinks their unit is a rare exception. “Normally it’s two people per room. So I have a bunk bed in my room,” Trawick said.

Bondy said no further complexes will be converted to undergrad housing.

“I feel confident that this will be the last time that we have to do that,” he said.