Sophomores are angered that they will not be allowed to live off campus during the 2004-2005 school year, after a Department of Residence Life and Housing Policy kept them from being granted a release from their housing contract.
According to Director of Housing Gary Stephenson and Dean of Students Mark Reed, the department’s policy is to grant 400 students off-campus status, while other students will be provided a bed on campus.
“There was no decision made to allow one group off campus and deny other,” said Stephenson. “Back at the informational meeting in October, I stated that we would be allowing approximately 400 students at the beach for the fall of 2004. I disclosed that there were 120 off campus now that would be included in the count, allowing around 280 to be released through the lottery process.”
“As the applications came in we began to see that the release commitment to the 400 [students] would end somewhere in the class of 2005,” said Stephenson.
However, some students are angered with the process, claiming that in the past the Department of Housing hasn’t conformed to allowing only a specific number of students off campus.
“When they posted the lottery numbers and I read that we wouldn’t be allowed to live off campus I was just shocked,” said Amy Rose ’06, who was planning to live on College Place with four other women next year.
“I never though it would be an issue,” Rose added. “They’ve always kept it right around 400 students, but never cut it off right there before. What the difference if they allow 10 or 20 juniors off campus?”
Rose and Tara Nolan ’06 addressed those concerns during a meeting with Gary Stephenson last semester.
“He told us the school has so many beds to fill and that they wanted to make sure they had all the beds filled before juniors move off-campus,” said Rose.
“They said they have to fill the beds on campus, which is crap because they increased the townhouses to five and seven man houses when they were supposed to change them back to four and six man houses,” said Nolan, who was planning to live on Reef Road. “They’re making more money forcing kids to stay on campus and keep parties down.”
Although Nolan and Rose had not yet signed leases for their houses, other students were not as lucky. Christie LaRousso ’06 is just one of about a dozen students who had already signed a lease and paid a security deposit.
“I am completely confused about what’s going on,” said LaRousso. “Housing has not been very clear and should have said that they were going to limit the number of off campus housing year.”
“I’m just upset, because the opportunity to live off campus was on my pros list for coming to Fairfield,” said LaRousso.
“They had a meeting telling us everything we had to do to get off campus, and told us it was likely,” said Nolan. Other students interviewed by the Mirror confirmed Nolan’s statement about the earlier meeting.
“There are several responsibilities that I have with the campus beds. They need to be filled,” said Stephenson. “I gather information for other departments and make a sound prediction of what our resident population will be Sept. 1, 2004.”
“In the past there was some flexibility with the freshman assignments, but now that we have class housing an empty junior bed must be filled by a fixed number of upper-class resident students,” Stephenson added.
According to Stephenson, he had no knowledge of any commitment to reconfigure the townhouses down in capacity.
Reed emphasized that there was no decision made not to let members of the class of 2006 live off-campus.
“I don’t see the university’s goal of [allowing] 400 students off-campus changing in the near future,” said Reed. “Juniors always fill in the spots remaining after seniors have chosen their housing options.”
Despite student anger, both Reed and Stephenson say the 400 student policy is not likely to change.
“Some students have appealed for a release to go off-campus status after the lottery process,” said Reed. “My office will listen to the appeals, but it is highly unlikely that a student group will be released off-campus after the process has run its course. The lottery is a fair and reasonable process and to make exceptions after the fact undermines the process that the other students had to go through.”
“I am concerned that the students that have signed leases and are not released from their University commitment will feel that the University will in time release them, but the numbers just aren’t there to support any further releases,” said Stephenson, whose department sent out letters telling students not to sign leases before being released from their housing contract. “Students need to take steps to get out of those leases.”
However, some rising juniors are still pursuing change. According to Rose the 2006 Class Council and FUSA President Kevin Neubauer ’05 are meeting with Reed on Wednesday to further discuss the matter.
“Our landlord was never worried about our housing situation because the girls he rents to now have been living at the beach since they were juniors,” said Rose.
“It’s historic. Living at the beach is part of going to Fairfield. We take pride and appreciate the fact that in the past we were given the opportunity to live at the beach as upperclassmen, but it seems like that’s ending,” Rose added.
Leave a Reply