Housing Update: Study Lounges Now Dorms, Bathrooms Now Study Lounges
October 21st, 2025
CONE HALL - Another wrinkle has emerged in App State’s desperate mission to supply sufficient housing to the student population. This semester, freshman students came to campus to find themselves in odd new abodes: lofted beds and false-wood dressers stacked in former study lounges with wall-sized windows and funyun-dusted carpet. The students’ panopticon-like living situations, fit for Old Testament nonbelievers and Japanese game show contestants, have not stopped them from the typical freshman fare: an honors seminar on Tuesday was full-frontaled by a 6th-floor Cone resident getting out of bed.
The response of students to living in low-ventilation zoo exhibits has, unsurprisingly, not been positive. As one resident told us, “The heat from the direct sunlight makes the smell in the carpets rise, so I leave the door cracked at night to let the air circulate, but now sleepwalking stoners keep raiding my fridge.”
The situation even affects students in dorms that are shitty in the normal way, as the floor bathrooms have been used to replace the study spaces. Mirrors have been replaced with whiteboards, and the toilet bowls now have cushioned lids and tray tables. A representative from Campus Housing demonstrated how students should make the new spaces work: “Look at this! I pull the shower curtain over, and now my standing desk is a private study space. When I want to put my pants back on, I just reach around and grab them off the hook on the wall.”
The worst part of all in the new living arrangements? We investigated the halls further, and apparently, the new bathrooms are the elevators. This is only temporary, however, as the school intends in its 5-year development plan to section off the back half of each elevator for a bunk bed. Other new student housing will include the janitors’ storage closets, the space between the washing machines and the wall, and “diagonal resting pods”, which will be on the right half of all staircases. Whatever way the school hoodwinks its student body next, the Rotten Appal will be there to report it.
The response of students to living in low-ventilation zoo exhibits has, unsurprisingly, not been positive. As one resident told us, “The heat from the direct sunlight makes the smell in the carpets rise, so I leave the door cracked at night to let the air circulate, but now sleepwalking stoners keep raiding my fridge.”
The situation even affects students in dorms that are shitty in the normal way, as the floor bathrooms have been used to replace the study spaces. Mirrors have been replaced with whiteboards, and the toilet bowls now have cushioned lids and tray tables. A representative from Campus Housing demonstrated how students should make the new spaces work: “Look at this! I pull the shower curtain over, and now my standing desk is a private study space. When I want to put my pants back on, I just reach around and grab them off the hook on the wall.”
The worst part of all in the new living arrangements? We investigated the halls further, and apparently, the new bathrooms are the elevators. This is only temporary, however, as the school intends in its 5-year development plan to section off the back half of each elevator for a bunk bed. Other new student housing will include the janitors’ storage closets, the space between the washing machines and the wall, and “diagonal resting pods”, which will be on the right half of all staircases. Whatever way the school hoodwinks its student body next, the Rotten Appal will be there to report it.