Talking Stick - November/December 2012 - 42

Conversations

Assignments Askew?
Members talk about how sluggish financial times have affected the housing assignments process and what needs to change for the future.
Participating in this conversation are Stacey Phelps, assistant director of residential life at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; Kathryn Magura, operations manager, assignments and customer service at Oregon State University in Corvallis; Sean Berthold, assistant dean for housing services at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Susan Nunan, director of housing assignments at Stanford University in California.

STACEY PHELPS Stacey Phelps: It is hard for me to comment on how the global economic crisis is affecting our assignments since we have a four-year residency requirement. However, the university a few years ago moved to a residential comprehensive fee to help students who could not afford our more expensive options. This fee allows our students to select anywhere without impacting the cost. This gives our students the ability to take advantage of our more independent housing options, which is very important to our office’s mission. We pride ourselves on the ability of our students to live more independently as they progress through university housing, starting with a residence hall and ending in a wood frame house that simulates off-campus living. Kathryn Magura: I have definitely seen the
effects of the global economic crisis in that students seem to be paying deposits to multiple schools. From an occupancy management perspective, this makes it even more challenging to anticipate how many residents you will have when these numbers need to be determined in the spring and students are waiting until after the summer orientation season to make their final commitment. What has worked at my university has been to build strong partnerships with enrollment management and admissions staff.

KATHRYN MAGURA

Sean Berthold: The effects of the economic crisis are evident in similar ways on our campus. We have a two-year residency requirement, and the majority of students choose to live on campus, but we will often see a larger percentage of commuters among our sophomores. Triple and quad rooms are also very popular given the lower rates for higher occupancy rooms, but they are in short supply. So, in addition to the partnerships with enrollment management and admissions that Kathryn mentioned, we also have a strong relationship with the office of finance, working to ensure that rate increases are minimized. Susan Nunan: The economic crisis has impacted us in a rather surprising way at Stanford. It has caused local rents in our area to go up by almost 20 percent in the past year due to an increase in demand for rental housing. This change in rental market prices increased the demand for on-campus housing from our graduate students. In order to meet this demand and to fulfill our promise of housing new graduate students, we have rented 170 apartments off campus that are being subsidized by the university. This subsidy is applied to keep rates the same as on campus

SEAN BERTHOLD

SUSAN NUNAN
42
Talking STick

Talking Stick - November/December 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - November/December 2012