After many discussions about combining the resources of their respective institutions, Indiana University and Purdue University merged their Indianapolis campuses to form IUPUI in 1969. With a new School of Nursing built in 1973, all of their activities were pulled from Ball Residence Hall . Housing utilized this free space by converting some to classrooms, and renting out others to different depa
rtments across campus . University Townhouses, later to be renamed Graduate Townhouses, were opened in 1981. Only built as temporary facilities to meet the need for increased enrollment, eight were demolished five years later to make way for an extension to the Ronald McDonald House. Prior to 1980, IUPUI did not put an emphasis on residential programming or development. This changed in 1983, as Campus Housing and the Student Affairs Division established the Residence Life program, the first effort to add a developmental component to housing. Late in the 1980s, Ball Hall was converted into coed facilities. IUPUI created the International House Program, twenty-three apartments, in 1991 because of an increased aware of “diversity and multiculturalism” that was expanding throughout campus. In 1995, the Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs requested a committee of faculty, staff, and students be created for the purpose of collecting proposals for the creation of new on-campus housing. An Advisory Committee was established in 1997 to stimulate academic and extra-curricular programming. A plan to expand housing from 468 spaces to 1,068 was approved by the Board of Trustees in 2000. The goal was to eventually expand to 3,000 spaces, or 10% of enrollment. Residents of the International House were notified early in 2001 that they would be temporarily relocated to make way for construction the following year. Over the course of the 2001-2002 academic year, the Campus Housing Office and Office of Residence Life would be merged to form the Office of Housing and Residence Life. This new office would report directly to the Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Diversity. Construction for the campus apartments began in 2002, with the first two being completed and opened by 2003. They included two Residential Based Learning Communities (RBLC): the Honors House and the International House. The final seven opened in 2004. During this year, Ball Hall began the “Living Your Freshman Experience (LYFE)” program. Over the next couple of years, 3 new RBLCs would be opened including the Purdue, Women in Science, and Herron Houses. In order to meet the rising demand for placement, supplemental housing has been offered through the IUPUI Park Place apartments for students whom HRL was unable to accommodate through the campus apartments, Ball Hall, or the townhouses since 2009.
