News

All students guaranteed housing next year

By the

October 31, 2002


All students who want to live on-campus are guaranteed housing next year regardless of their previously allotted years of eligibility, based on the findings of the Housing Advisory Committee, composed of both students and administrators. As of press time, e-mails announcing the change were scheduled to be sent to sophomores and juniors this morning from Director of Housing Services Shirley Menendez.

The University will be able to house 5,022 students on-campus next year, according to a sheet distributed during a meeting of the Housing Advisory Committee.

Because of the number of students who will continue to live off campus and students who will be studying abroad, the University can guarantee on-campus housing to any student who may want it, Resident Assistant and committee member Hormazd Kanga (MSB ‘03) said.

University juniors had been previously told they had only three years of housing, but this has now been increased to four. Juniors are almost guaranteed a University-owned apartment or townhouse, Kanga said.

Jon Bromma (CAS ‘04) said that he thinks the housing changes will benefit students who want to live off campus.

“I think it will actually help the rental market for students off campus because it will decrease demand and drive down rental prices,” Bromma said.

Three e-mails were planned: one to juniors who did not use their eligibility this year and thus have highest priority in the lottery, one to juniors who lived on campus this year and one to sophomores.

The Southwest Quadrangle is scheduled to be completed by next fall and will include a 780-bed dormitory. The dormitory will have 170 single rooms, which will raise the total number of single rooms on-campus to 200.

Priority for the single rooms will most likely be given to the approximately 25 first-years who do not fit in the current first-year student dorms. This will allow them to be closer to the rest of the first-year class, Kanga said.

Next year’s sophomores will most likely be housed in LXR, Darnall and the Southwest Quad, since apartments and townhouses will be reserved for upperclass students.

“I wouldn’t even tell them they had a chance,” Kanga said, in reference to sophomores getting apartments next year.

According to GUSA Assembly member Ed Shelleby (CAS ‘04), the housing lottery will be conducted online next year.

The new lottery will be a huge improvement, according to Shelleby, who is also on the Housing Committee.

“The lottery will has the same format except that now students can participate from thier computers,” he said.

The committee is planning to set up a practice lottery to test the process. Members hope to have 500 to 1,000 students participate, and may potentially give prizes as incentives.

The committee will continue to meet weekly in order to work on student housing issues, Shelleby said.

“Right now we are trying to gauge student input. We are trying to figure out who will want to live where; our main goal is to please students,” he said.



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