One year in, reception cool on new SRU residence policy
SLIPPERY ROCK — The 2023-24 school year at Slippery Rock University marks the first year under a policy which requires freshmen and sophomores to reside in on-campus housing. Previously, the residency requirement applied only to freshmen.
One year into the policy, reception from Slippery Rock students has been mixed.
“I think it’s a good thing and a bad thing,” said one SRU freshman who declined to be named. “I don't live close to here, so I was going to live on campus no matter what.”
“I think it's just gonna contribute to the overcrowding problem a little bit more,” said SRU freshman Ariana Brazile. “If they would have just let sophomores move off campus this year, like they've done in the past, it would help reduce the issue.”
Ella Bloom, a student government member who also serves as a resident assistant at a campus dorm, said the residents of her dorm are largely unaffected by the new policy.
“I've pretty consistently heard that it's really not a big deal for a lot of those freshmen,” Bloom said. “For a lot of people, they feel like they need to get that college experience, and the way to do that is through the dorms.”
According to chief student affairs officer Dr. David Wilmes, SRU is among the last of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education to implement such a policy.
“I think we were, like, the last one to adopt the two-year requirement,” Wilmes said.
The change was first publicly announced in August of 2022, a year before implementation. The university cited studies which found that underclassmen who live on campus have more fulfilling college lives.
“Research shows that students who live on campus for their freshman and sophomore year are more successful,” Wilmes said. “They're more likely to be retained and graduate within four years. The purpose for doing this was really to ensure that students had as much support as possible during those first two critical years of college.”
“It's a lot easier to be involved in organizations and clubs when you live right there, versus living 20 or 30 minutes away,” Bloom said.
Wilmes believes that the policy’s effect on off-campus apartment housing will be negligible.
“When we announced this, I met with all of the property holders,” Wilmes said. “I explained to them that it really should have a negligible effect on off-campus housing providers, because we are not increasing the number of beds on campus.”
The university implemented its new policy with the full knowledge that it might lead to overcrowding of on-campus housing, so The Rock implemented some strategies to reduce the chances of this happening when the policy came into effect this past fall.
“We had some students that were in triples,” Dr. Wilmes said. “A room that would have been previously a double was set for three residents. So we did have a few students that were in that position. ... We were able to move those students to other housing arrangements as space opened up.”
There are some exceptions to the policy. Students can seek permission to live off-campus if they live within 60 miles of the university, have special circumstances that require them to live off-campus, or only attend school part-time.
One freshman, who wished to remain anonymous, doesn’t fit any of these criteria.
“I'm one of the people that wanted to get an apartment, but I live very far away,” said this freshman, who lives near Philadelphia. “I'm annoyed by it.”
“I get wanting freshmen to be more acclimated with the campus in the future,” Brazile said. “I get the positives, but I feel like the negatives outweigh the positive.”
