Chatham University will temporarily stop housing students in Dilworth Hall on the Shadyside campus for the 2025-26 academic year to complete building renovations.

This decision was made over the summer after Residence Life calculated the number of students expected to be living on campus. Pelletreau Apartments Tower 3 is also temporarily closed this academic year.

“Every year, we get a weekly report of how many students are coming to Chatham and throughout the summer, myself, the director of Residence Life and Admissions communicate regularly about the number of students that have been coming in,” said Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Chris Purcell. “There seemed to be a pretty clear pattern throughout the summer that we were going to have fewer traditional first-time students.”

Josie Underdonk ‘28 spent her fresh year living in Dilworth.

“I was informed by Dean Purcell during orientation leader training and I was really surprised by that information. [I felt] a little shocked,” Underdonk said. “I know some other people who lived in Dilworth last year kind of feel the same way.”

Dilworth Hall’s residence assistants (RAs) have been dispersed to other campus housing locations. No RAs were cut because of the temporary closure of Dilworth.

“It wasn’t a thing where now that Dilworth has closed, three RAs are gone,” Natty Burfield, assistant dean of Residence Life and Student Conduct said. “We moved the three of them over.”

However, the closures are not permanent and the decisions were made in order to update many aspects of these residence halls.

Burfield stated that Dilworth would be getting new flooring, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) improvements in the bathrooms and lockable stalls.

“Being able to have [Dilworth] offline to actually address all of the needs of the building is hopefully going to be really beneficial for the students next year,” Burfield said. “It is Residence Life’s goal that the building 100% opens next year.”

While Dilworth is undergoing renovations, the offices of some athletic coaches are still available in the basement. These offices will remain open throughout the year, unless maintenance work requires temporary relocation. Both Dilworth and Pelletreau Tower 3 can also be used as emergency housing spaces if needed.

“If we had an emergency tomorrow in Woodland and we had no heat, we would put students in Dilworth,” Dean Purcell said. “It’s operational.”