From 1933-35, Professor Emeritus of mechanical and industrial engineering Seichi Konzo, his family and two research assistants lived in a University-built research residence, where he and the two research assistants analyzed air conditioning performance.
In 2025, nearly a century after Konzo’s foundational work, Taft, Van Doren, Shelden and Leonard residence halls still do not have in-unit AC. Shelden and Leonard were built together in 1949 as LAR. Allen Hall was added in 1958 as the third LAR building, and it received AC during the summer of 2024. Leonard and Shelden are still lacking the upgrade.
“Allen Hall got AC recently, right?” said Jane McCumber, freshman in Media. “And they’re right across from us. I see that they have AC, and I’m like, ‘Oh, where’s our AC?’”
McCumber lives in Shelden, and although she likes studying in her room, she said she would enjoy it even more if there were AC.
“I was one of the students that they ran out of housing for, even though I was (assigned) the priority housing,” McCumber said. “So I didn’t get to choose LAR; then I got put in a dorm with no AC. I’m from here — from Urbana — so I’ve experienced the heat of the summer and the fall and how bad it can get. So I was a little bit bummed out.”
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At the same time, there are potential upsides to not having any AC. The system won’t constantly drone on in the background, and it can force students out of the dorm and lessen their overall energy usage.
“It’s uncomfortable when it gets hot, but days in the fall like this — when it’s a little bit cooler — it’s kind of nice to have the windows open and not feel like you’re wasting energy,” McCumber said.
Becca Lucas, junior in LAS, lived in Shelden when she was a freshman. During her first week of school, extreme temperatures caused a University professor to cancel class.
“We were kind of in a record heat wave, and moving into a dorm with no AC, first time away from home, coming home from band camp — it was pretty bad,” Lucas said.
Lucas would spend all day outside practicing with the Marching Illini before returning to a home without AC.
“It was pretty brutal,” Lucas said. “It was already pretty hot when I moved in, but it just continued to get hotter throughout the week. We were outside from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and I would already be really hot, and the last thing I would want to be doing is to step into a room that is arguably hotter than it is outside.”
This raises the question: Why didn’t the University install AC in residence halls sooner?
“University Housing has a facilities plan where upgrades, maintenance and renovation (are) planned for and budgeted many years into the future,” wrote Chris Axtman-Barker, associate director of communications and marketing for University Housing, in an email to The Daily Illini. “In the last few years, students have increasingly mentioned air conditioning as a key point of feedback.”
Due in part to student feedback, Barton and Lundgren halls received AC this summer, 84 years after their construction date. As for Leonard, Shelden, Taft and Van Doren residents, they’ll have to wait out the heat for a little while longer.
“We plan to add air conditioning to Shelden and Leonard halls in the coming years, but do not have an exact date,” Axtman-Barker wrote.
