Want to live at the beach junior year? Make sure you do because you will likely not be able to come back on to campus.
“When students want to go off-campus for housing, we release them from their four year housing contract, which in turn releases us from being obligated to provide them with housing for the rest of their time here,” said Gary Stephenson, Director of Housing Operations. “We generally don’t do it (allow students back on campus).”
But if students do want to come back onto campus, Housing Operations will attempt to work with them.
“My job is to fill all the beds at this University but I won’t raise occupation anywhere,” said Stephenson. “We only accept students back on to campus if it is in our best interest. If we have the room, we will allow people to return.”
The process that students have to follow is pretty simple and straightforward.
“Usually students get in contact with us via e-mail or a phone call. We inform them that we don’t have any space available at the moment but we will keep their request active. We do this so we can get more information from both the student and their family as to why they want to return to on-campus housing,” Stephenson said. “If it turns out that the reason is valid and reasonable and we have the space, we will allow the student to return.”
Students that have come back say that it wasn’t very difficult.
“It wasn’t too difficult. I made an appointment with Gary Stephenson and I told him why I wanted to come back,” said Deven Roccisano, ’04. “I only have a few classes left to graduate and won’t be here next semester so I didn’t want to sign a lease for an entire year.”
Tom Dilczweski, ’04 agreed. “It wasn’t hard at all. I talked to Gary Stephenson and told him that I wanted to move back onto campus because I work in the campus center until late hours so it’s easier for me to live on campus so I didn’t have to drive back to the beach.”
These two students are two of the small number of off-campus residents that returned this year.
“Every year, we have a small number of students return,” said Stephenson. “Usually, the number is less than a dozen.”
Off-campus housing at the beach is one of the perks of being a senior at Fairfield University. By choosing this route, however, be prepared to live with it.
“Living on campus is not an automatic revolving door,” said Stephenson.
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