2008 Woodie Awards
Living-learners pulled in with a key guarantee
Laura Grammar
Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: News
The Resident Life Department announced Monday that only about 600 spots were left in University Courtyards and South Campus Commons apartments, but Nicole Smith isn't worried.
The sophomore, who didn't want to use her real name for this article, applied for and was accepted to the Beyond the Classroom program, which provides its participants with guaranteed housing in Commons Building 1 - with the motivation of "mainly housing."
Some of next year's juniors and seniors who, like Smith, have been marked off of Resident Life's list are looking to a special exception policy given to such living-learning programs as a potential provider of an on-campus - and highly sought after, as the case is for programs housed in Commons - room, while many program directors are strengthening entry requirements.
After Resident Life announced between 300 and 1,000 of this year's sophomores will not receive on-campus housing next year, several living-learning programs asked the department for a change in housing policy. "As the years went by, [we] had to fight for each individual student who was not eligible for housing," said Global Communities Program Director Monica Emery. "As that developed, our [housing] policies had to change with that."
According to department directors, Resident Life allows for 25 percent of most living-learning programs' spots to go to students who are "exceptions to housing" - meaning this year's sophomore and juniors, as well as transfer and off-campus students - who would not otherwise have a chance of obtaining a room on the campus.
Demand for those spots has increased in some programs more than in others. Phoenix Liu, director of the Language House, said her program received about 120 applications for 40 spots this year, a 100-percent increase in demand from previous years.
But Director Johnna Schmidt of the Jimènez-Porter Writers' House, which shares Dorchester Hall with Global Communities, said demand has not risen at all this year. "[The program] has a very narrow focus," she said. "I was expecting that we were going to have a group of applicants who really weren't all that interested in creative writing who were applying mainly for housing. ... [The housing crunch] didn't make that big of a difference this year."
The sophomore, who didn't want to use her real name for this article, applied for and was accepted to the Beyond the Classroom program, which provides its participants with guaranteed housing in Commons Building 1 - with the motivation of "mainly housing."
Some of next year's juniors and seniors who, like Smith, have been marked off of Resident Life's list are looking to a special exception policy given to such living-learning programs as a potential provider of an on-campus - and highly sought after, as the case is for programs housed in Commons - room, while many program directors are strengthening entry requirements.
After Resident Life announced between 300 and 1,000 of this year's sophomores will not receive on-campus housing next year, several living-learning programs asked the department for a change in housing policy. "As the years went by, [we] had to fight for each individual student who was not eligible for housing," said Global Communities Program Director Monica Emery. "As that developed, our [housing] policies had to change with that."
According to department directors, Resident Life allows for 25 percent of most living-learning programs' spots to go to students who are "exceptions to housing" - meaning this year's sophomore and juniors, as well as transfer and off-campus students - who would not otherwise have a chance of obtaining a room on the campus.
Demand for those spots has increased in some programs more than in others. Phoenix Liu, director of the Language House, said her program received about 120 applications for 40 spots this year, a 100-percent increase in demand from previous years.
But Director Johnna Schmidt of the Jimènez-Porter Writers' House, which shares Dorchester Hall with Global Communities, said demand has not risen at all this year. "[The program] has a very narrow focus," she said. "I was expecting that we were going to have a group of applicants who really weren't all that interested in creative writing who were applying mainly for housing. ... [The housing crunch] didn't make that big of a difference this year."
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