If you were on Facebook on August 30th – well, of course you were, what other way would you have vented your anger about Fairfield’s decision to postpone move-in day?
Statuses of students from New Jersey to Massachusetts all had something in common other than their mention of the hurricane – contempt for having to be home another week.
“I was very upset. I was all ready to go. Then I started getting all the phone calls and emails – some with conflicting information. I was very upset about the whole situation,” said Alessandro Iannuzzi ’14.
But it was not just the tease of getting so close to move-in day without the moving that was upsetting. The fact of the matter is that students who live on campus pay upwards of $10,000 for housing, and they will never get back the money they paid for that time (let alone the week itself).
The email received by students from Charles Sousa, Associate Director of Residence Life, first listed “continued uncertainty about the full restoration of power to campus and the surrounding area” as the university’s motive for the move-in postponement.
An email sent the next day from students@fairfield.edu said that “normal university operations have resumed,” but that some parts of campus still had limited or no power.
Based on the details and frequency of those emails, the new move-in schedule seemed reasonable. What seems inconsistent and flawed about the university’s handling of the situation is the lack of updates and options after power was restored shortly after those emails were sent.
As students were eager to use the facilities they had waited so long and paid so much for, it would have been appropriate to keep the student body informed. In addition, some of the students who did not have running water at home would have been more than happy to move on campus and take a hot shower.
Furthermore, students who had problems with the last minute reschedule would have moved in as soon as complete power was restored, had they known it was possible. For example, Slawek Guzierowicz ’14 could not move in on the newly proposed day because his father was scheduled for surgery. Luckily for him, Guzierowicz e-mailed his area coordinator and was able to move in the week before. Not all students were as lucky.
Was the university worried about giving students the option to move in when power was restored for fear of early pre-semester partying?
No student can answer that question for sure, but one can definitely say that Fairfield left us in the dark when the lights came on.
Leave a Reply