Hamilton dorm resident, Mckenzee Manlupig, sitting in the Collier Wing stairwell. As a sophomore transfer student from The University of Hawaii at Manoa, Manlupig says “I think not having an elevator is really inaccessible, especially when you live on a higher floor.”

Opinion: All residence halls should guarantee accessibility and convenience
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For incoming freshmen, selecting a residence hall is no small task. There are so many details to consider: location, nearby dining options and price just to name a few. No matter how much planning you do, there’s one amenity that slips your mind: whether a dorm has an elevator.
At UO, the only two current residence halls without elevators are Earl and Hamilton. Considering that both halls are four floors tall, this can have vast impacts on the lives of residents.
When residents shell out thousands of dollars per term to live on campus, it is an absurd fact that there are still dorms without elevators in the year 2024. To guarantee university-heralded accessibility and general convenience for residents, elevators should be added to both Earl and Hamilton.
My primary complaint surrounds the current inaccessibility of Earl and Hamilton. For students with disabilities, stair-only residence halls aren’t an option, restricting them from two of the most conveniently located and cheapest options on campus.
For reference, a double with a standard meal plan costs $14,386 per year in Hamilton and $15,858 in Earl. In newer dorms with similar locations, doubles can cost as much as $18,000.
UO prides itself on a commitment to “creating a diverse learning and working environment that is inclusive and accessible for everyone,” but how can we excuse such ignorance when it comes to students’ living environment?
The truth is, we can’t. All students deserve elevator access no matter what residence hall they choose to live in. Nobody’s dorm choices should be limited by whether a hall is suitably accessible.
And for the benefit of those who do choose to live in Earl and Hamilton, the steep prices other students pay for housing could subsidize the costs of constructing elevators in each wing of both halls. Such renovations would be expensive, but students contribute more than enough funding to improve these facilities.
On a more trivial level, the inconvenience of constantly hiking up endless amounts of stairs also warrants renovations to Earl and Hamilton.
Stairs are exhausting. Laundry days are all the more dreaded for Earl and Hamilton residents, as they have to journey to their building’s respective basements for washer and dryer access, and stairs are the final provocation in this series of unmotivating events.
“We need an elevator in Earl; it would make living here so much easier,” first-year student and Earl resident Nate DeLage said. “One time, a girl on the floor above me broke her leg and was forced to walk up four floors. Unfortunately, I didn’t know my dorm didn’t have an elevator until the day I moved in.”
So, what’s holding the university back from renovating these residence halls and adding elevators?
Most theories surround the age and inevitable tear-down of Earl and Hamilton — that it’s not financially feasible or logical to make such drastic changes when both halls will be redone in the near future.
Despite this, renovations to older dorms are within the university’s wheelhouse. For instance, in 2014, the school spent over $6 million on upgrading bathrooms to be all-gender.
The question of redoing Earl and Hamilton is always up in the air with little clarity on exactly when the deed will be done. There is little clarity on just how long residents of these halls will have to live elevatorless lives under the guise of eventual renovation.
We spend thousands of dollars to attend this university and even more to live on its campus, so I see it as a reasonable expectation for all residence halls, and campus spaces in general, to properly accommodate all students and their needs.