2022 Housing Crisis

The 2022 Housing Crisis (pending better name) was a series of events following the announcement that UNT students would be living alongside TAMS students for the 2022-2023 academic year. Several alumni have pointed out the similarity between the crisis and the 2020 Town Hall.

Prelude

During Summer 2022, rumors arose that UNT students would be rooming in McConnell Hall alongside TAMS students. While the academy had originally started like this, McConnell has had a long history of being reserved exclusively for TAMS. As a result, parents and students alike were concerned by potential ramifications. The rumors were confirmed by Russ Stukel in an email on August 3rd:

"Move in day is rapidly approaching.  You all have received (hopefully) your room assignments. There is a new wrinkle for this fall.  Regretfully two factors are intersecting which is prompting use of open rooms/bed spaces in McConnell.  There were not sufficient qualified applications for the Class of 2024 to fill the vacancies of the graduates of the Class 2022. Simultaneously UNT continues to admit a freshman class (required to live on campus) that exceeds the traditional residence hall space available.

Combining these two factors has UNT utilizing the open bed spaces in McConnell for UNT freshman.  The largest portion of those UNT freshman girls will be living on their own wing on the 1st floor D wing and a few on A100.  TAMS security, safety protocols, and policies will still be in place.  This is not ideal however we are optimistic this can be a workable solution.  It reminds me of the early days of TAMS during the first 3 years when TAMS partnered with UNT and TAMS students and UNT student lived in McConnell productively.

I've been in several meetings disagreeing and petitioning for alternatives however UNT has decided this solution is the best for UNT."

Furthermore, RAs had been notified that they would be receiving roommates, which had never been implemented prior to Fall 2022. Since living alone has always been a perquisite of being an RA, this understandably caused displeasure amongst the McConnel staff.

Act 1: The Parents Strike Back

After the information had been shared out to parents, several parents groups were instantly aflame. Notably, the TAMS 2023 Parents WhatsApp organized a zoom meeting on August 4th in which they planned to discuss what their response to the news would be. This Zoom meeting was amongst TAMS parents alone, and concerned parents spoke out about the downsides that bringing UNT students into McConnel may bring. Most of them adopted the strategy of emailing a large number of administration officials about their concerns.

Act 2: Admin vs. The Parents of the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science

Due to a barrage of emails and other communications by other parents, the administration organized a zoom webinar between students/parents and administration staff on August 9th. A recording of the event was provided here by an unknown source. Several TAMS students also joined for the express purposes of trolling the parents who are making a problem out of this. One particular TAMS student was tasked with calling Dr. Gruver a "jit." He not only did so but called Russ, Dr. de Oliveira, and an passionate but stupid parent a "jit" as well.

Act 3: Epilouge

By December 2022, There hadn't been many problems apart from one UNT student coming on the girls wing, which further lead to changing all of the bathroom codes and other 'incidents". RA roommates have all been moved to different halls and the vast majority of the UNT students reside in First Floor D-Wing. Currently there is no telling if UNT will continue to move Freshmen to the halls in the later future, it all comes down to filling up McConnell Hall in coming years.