Enrollment and Its Impact on Housing and Residence Life
By: Dennis Coldstock
Again, we are experiencing ‘over-enrollment’ this fall, coupled with over-enrollment from last fall- sophomores we also still house! This causes us to exceed capacity in our residence hall system and raises the possibility that over a quarter of our incoming freshmen may not be assigned one of their three top choices of residence halls, especially if their choices are the typically perceived popular facilities. So, I would like to address some of the facilities which are typically, unfairly considered less popular by either our incoming residents or their parents, in the event your student is assigned one.
Marian Hall (see pictures attached): This building was originally a grade school girl’s dormitory, owned and operated by the Sisters of the Holy Names, for young girls attending classes at an academy in the now assisted living facility ½ block further east from Marian. We purchased this property from the Sisters around 2005 and rebuilt the interior, maintaining some of the nicer amenities that existed in bedrooms, yet transforming this facility into a true residence hall. Since then, it has served as the home to our Living/Learning Community we currently name ‘Outdoor Pursuits.’ Your student need not be enrolled in that LLC to live in Marian, yet will always be invited to that sort of programming, among others. I like Marian! My wife and I frequented it during our renovation and thought we’d love to live there if we were not raising a family. What I like about this building, is its proximity to Gonzaga University’s new 4.5 acre tennis/golf complex ½ block further east, and that it is of a construction model designed to last a century-lots of brick, mortar and concrete floors. It’s profoundly quiet, as sound doesn’t travel far down the corridors or between floors. The thing I like the most, is how the community feels once the year begins and residents get to know each other. Of all our buildings, this one feels the most like a real ‘home.’ It has its own fully enclosed open air courtyard, more indoor common space per resident of any of our facilities, and a surround sound big screen television area in the basement’s grand lounge. Students living in Marian are allowed to opt out of a meal plan if they wish, and we have three kitchens in the building, all stocked with wares for student use. Additionally, I like the indoor Oratory [worship space] designed for those wishing some quiet time for prayer or bible study. Residents of Marian use the main floor Grand Lounge as their home’s living room so anyone entering the building is immediately greeted as students turn their heads to see who’s entering. This is a profound difference, from other similar buildings, as it is visible evidence of a significant comfort among the residents of the building.
River Inn Hall (see pictures attached): This is the ‘end building’ of a multi-building upscale hotel that shares a border on our campus on the west end. I really, really like this spot for a few reasons! My favorites are that each room has its own bath/shower and air conditioning. Each room has more square feet than any bedroom in any residence hall or apartment in our entire system! With creativity, we’ve seen residents fit a couch in one of these rooms along with having their own bath/shower. I also like that we have a great relationship with management of that facility and have been working together for 13 of the past 17 years in this way. Last year, we had 130 students in the River Inn. This year, we will have 80. Within shouting distance, 200 upper division GU students will be living in 940 North [a new privately owned college apartment complex], and 200 GU sophomores will be living in Dussault Suites. Collectively, 502 students will be living in that triad of facilities in that corner of our campus. At the other corner of that same end of campus, just two blocks north, 450 sophomores and 200 juniors/seniors will be living in Kennedy Apartments, also home to Duff’s Bistro, serving ‘bistro’ style food late morning through early evening, for all students and faculty/staff, complete with a regular Friday 4:30 p.m. Jazz Band to end the week! So 1,150 students live on the west end of campus! In River Inn Hall, we provide campus Comcast television service, and Gonzaga University data connectivity, as well as our traditional free laundry. In addition, we provide GU custodial and maintenance response and campus security. The host hotel does not interfere. We entirely lease the area we use and service it, as if we owned it. Residents will receive access to a community room in neighboring Dussault Suites across the parking lot for billiards/ BBQ/ a kitchen, and access to the office of one of our Area Coordinators, who supervises the professional Residence Director assigned to River Inn, among other buildings.
Smaller Residence Halls Our university has more residential variety than most. I categorize our facilities by size: large, which house more than 300, mid-range, which house between 90 and 200, and small, housing for 38 to 55 residents. We intentionally choose to maintain this variety because each category is distinct in how it fosters community, and thus provides a deep variety of experiences for our student body in what it means to develop ‘community.’ What I like about our small facilities is that they fit the same number of residents as a ‘corridor’ or ‘wing’ would in larger residence halls. So, the same number of students then take ownership of an entire ‘building’ and all its common areas as would students in a wing of a larger building who really only own a small lounge, and sometimes not even that, as common space for their community within the larger building. The sense of comfort of ‘home’ happens upon entrance to the smallest of our buildings, rather than having to first navigate through the large building to get to your area of that building.
Moving into your first home, away from the home in which you grew up, is both exciting and scary. For parents and families, a larger array of emotions is in play, as you want the very best for your student, and to be assured that they will quickly make new friends and learn to thrive. The check-in weekend will be ripe with the sweat of moving in during usually hot days, and all the emotions which come with the stress of moving possessions, meeting new people, finding parking, setting up rooms and trying to avoid the thought of driving away at the end of the weekend, leaving your student behind. Please know that the faculty and staff of Gonzaga University experience the very same things with their own children going off to college, including me. Many of us know what this is all about because we’ve been college residents and, later in life, we’ve been parents taking our own children to college! We ‘get it’ and we have the special privilege to have careers devoted to hosting new students and making their experience the best it can be.
In the meantime, try not to get too excited if your student doesn’t get a preferred assignment. Rather, spend the opportunity between now and then to treasure some intentional time with your student before check-in weekend, and encourage them to understand they will truly enjoy whatever building they are assigned, assuring them we have the staff and skill to make any facility a really nice home. We’ll see you soon!