Talking Stick - May/June 2015 - 31

movers, residence life staff, the access
control team, the mail room, and
countless other stakeholders. The
occupancy manager must rely upon
good relationships, an understanding
of organizational culture, and broad
communication in order to be
successful in these overflow situations.
Kristen Evans, assistant director
of recruitment and training at Grand
Valley State University (GVSU) in
Allendale, Michigan, notes that the
process is an ongoing one and that her
department sends a representative to
bi-weekly meetings with enrollment
management. Their goal is two-fold:
to help build a strong relationship
and to help both entities understand
student enrollment and housing
occupancy at the institution. Without
these components, she feels the
department would be less effective.
"It's crucial that our assignment
strategy is in line with enrollment
trends and institutional priorities,"
she says. GVSU has a high return rate
of 30 percent, a rolling admission,
and a priority to support diversity.
Evans' focus is studying future
planning and admissions through
an assignments lens and trying to
understand how what they plan today
can make a successful future for their
students and their institution. As
part of her job, she assists in training
new admissions counselors. "The
accuracy of information and quality
of service (to incoming students and
families) has greatly improved as a
result of the assignment staff having
a greater knowledge of admissions
processes and the admissions staff
having a greater knowledge of housing
processes," she says. Additionally,
she works hard with financial aid and
admissions so as not to set students up
for financial disaster. When assigning
and transferring several hundred
students into overflow housing, she
works intentionally to assign them to
reasonably priced options. All of these

actions provide a high level of service
and positions her department in such
a way as to maximize occupancy so
that the melt (losing students between
the fall and spring) is reduced.
High occupancy numbers can
also drive institutions to build new
housing, and when they need a quick
turnaround many turn to Public
Private Partnerships (P3s), entering
into relationships with private
developers to build new housing and/
or dining facilities and community
space. On many campuses, these
partnerships not only help the
institution gain the student housing
they need within a faster timeframe
but they can also increase the
percentage of students the department
is able to retain in on-campus housing.
Penny D. Cox, director of housing
project implementation and new
strategies at the University of Kentucky
(UK) in Lexington, explains how high
occupancy has driven the demand to
build new facilities through a P3 on
her campus. Like Evans, Cox meets
with key stakeholders and enrollment
management to understand the
demand for housing and how that
need ebbs and flows throughout the
year. In prior years, the UK housing

operation experienced a significant
decline in demand in their 47-yearold traditional residence halls; to
counteract that, they decided to build
new halls with private two-bedroom
suites and kitchenettes. Their plan
worked too well. As of fall 2014,
"housing demand for the new halls
increased to nearly 200 percent," Cox
says. Although demand for the older
halls is at approximately 55 percent,
the demand to get into the new halls
is overwhelming, with approximately
700 students on a waiting list to get
their chance to live in the new suites.
And adding to the excitement was the
development of new living-learning
communities at the same time the
new halls were being built. UK
does not have a mandatory housing
requirement and anticipates that the
market will remain strong for housing.
However, in the future, a strong
awareness of institutional trends
regarding enrollment alongside a
preventative maintenance plan will be
critical for this operation.
Tracey Condon-Kneifl, new
occupancy manager at Emporia State
University in Kansas, has learned that
one of the most valuable pieces from
her experience has been to ask, "What
did the previous person in my role

The Durrell Center
includes a dining
center, convenience
store, seminar
rooms, and much
more.

PHOTO COURTESY OF COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY

MAY + JUNE 2015

31
Talking Stick - May/June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - May/June 2015
