By MARIA PAPPAS
STAFF WRITER
Before arriving at Fordham University for the first time, an anonymous sophomore transfer student thought that she would be living on campus. A few weeks before she was scheduled to move in, however, she found out that her housing assignment was not what she had expected.
She was placed at Fordham-owned off-campus housing — Arthur House — where she currently resides with other transfer students.
She feels as though on-campus housing, both for her and for other transfer students, would allow students to feel more comfortable at Fordham, and living on campus “would certainly make the transition [into the Fordham community] an easier one.”
She also said, “As a transfer, it’s already hard enough to meet new people, find my way around and integrate myself in the Fordham community. Living off campus makes this even more difficult.”
While she is striving to make the best of her situation, she has also spoken to Residential Life in order to try to rectify the situation. As of now, she is still living in Arthur House.
“I’m hoping to get on campus for the spring semester, for that would make life much easier,” she said.
Many students receiving their housing assignments had similar issues. Another student, an anonymous member of FCRH ’15, felt that it was unfair for her time for the housing lottery to be changed based on the fact that her roommate is in a different graduating class.
The time change forced her to go into post-lottery and thus, her housing assignment was not given to her until after both her parents and her roommate’s parents had called Residential Life multiple times.
Fortunately, she was placed in a suite with the roommate that she requested; however, the placement was not timely.
“I did not receive an official email until I had already moved in,” she said.
She said that the post-lottery problem could be alleviated altogether if more residence halls were built or if housing was not guaranteed for all four years, and added that “the [current] process is not smooth or efficient.”
Patrick Cahill, FCRH ’15, had a similar issue in that he was placed in the post-lottery system, and was not informed of his housing situation until the end of the summer.
“One of my suitemates was moving in on Sunday, Aug. 18 and as of Wednesday the 14th we still had not heard anything from Residential Life,” Cahill said.
Both he and the aforementioned student found that the office did not inform them of their housing assignments in a timely manner, telling them multiple times that they would receive confirmation of their housing, which they did not.
When he was placed in a room, it was a six-person suite in Walsh, which he did not list as a preference on his post-lottery form.
Thankfully, he is happy with his placement for now. However, he believes the whole process does not work because of the randomly-assigned room selection times.
Cahill said that his suggestion to alleviate the time issue would be “a formula that would consider certain factors such as GPA and extracurricular involvement into the time each student is given.”
Kimberly Russell, the dean of Residential Life, commented on these issues. She stated Residential Life tried to keep groups together and give each group the housing they requested. In order to do so, however, the office needed to wait for enough students to withdraw from housing.
She understands that perhaps there were problems with the communication between Residential Life and students and although it may have caused frustration, she hopes that these communication issues can be rectified in the future.
Russell said that if anyone would like to speak to Residential Life about housing issues, there will be focus groups throughout the year in order to give students a chance to voice their opinions on how Residential Life can improve or correct itself for future years.
