This year (like many years past) the housing lottery has been causing issues for many students – specifically the juniors. Because of the impact of this year’s housing lottery (students being forced off campus, students being split from their pre-planned roommates, tripling upperclassmen, etc.), the students are taking a stand: a petition has been created, asking for CNU to not only have an open dialogue with the students about how to fix the housing issue, but also to change the residency requirement from how many years a student has been on campus to how many credits he or she has earned. Instead of third years and below being required to live on campus, CNU would go back to its requirement that students with less than 60 credits have to live on campus.
Now, what would this mean for our campus?
First, it would definitely open up housing for those who need it. Our campus is over 70 percent filled with students who don’t live in Hampton Roads, meaning that these students DEFINITELY don’t live within commuting range. This being so, there aren’t enough spaces to house 5-year MAT students, anyone who’s here for his or her fourth year or above, and all of the 23 percent of students that live here in HR all on one campus (not including the students who live over one hour away and meet the housing requirements). Now, I’m not necessarily complaining about there being a majority of students here from NoVa (even though I joke with my friends and family that CNU is NoVa away from NoVa), just that I think we may not have necessarily prepared for the bloom our campus has experienced, and the bloom happened faster than the building.
Second, it would open up parking. While I personally feel that freshmen shouldn’t have their cars on campus (most of the time the cars just sit in spots so the drivers don’t lose said spot), I can see why some would have them, especially since most of the students live between two to four hours away. Changing the housing requirement would mean that residents and commuters would have better parking. The university could then change its parking locations so that residents would park on the outskirts (the baseball field, the garage, and the spots across Warwick) and commuters could park in the lots behind the residence halls. Because there would be a larger portion of commuters, the residents could have open parking during the weeknight and weekend (like they do now), and there would be even more spaces for them to choose from because the students who would be commuting would no longer be taking those spots. This would also help to offset their frustration of not being allowed to park near their residence halls (even though there’s plenty of campuses that don’t have residential parking right behind the residence halls… With MUCH bigger campuses).
Third, it would change from being restricted based on your years on campus to your credits. You might be wondering what the difference is between third years and juniors. Well, let me explain it using my own personal case. I’m a first year, but a sophomore. With my summer class, my total earned credits when I start the fall semester of 2016 will be 61, putting me as a second year student with a junior class standing. According to housing, your required residency DOES NOT go by credits, but rather by how many years you have physically been a student on campus. I personally made sure to ask this question at the first-year housing lottery seminars held by University Housing this year, so that’s how I know this. The petition calls specifically for students who will have over 60 CREDITS to be exempt from housing, meaning that this year would be my last year to be required to live on campus. By SPECIFICALLY STATING that the requirement would be done by credits, it doesn’t leave anything open to interpretation about what a “third year” is; as long as you have the credits, you can get the exemption.
Fourth, it would allow those of us who live just out of the commuter range to become a part of it. Inadvertently, CNU’s commuter range would expand. Those of us who have permanent home addresses in the Southside (Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach), Northern cities (such as Williamsburg and Gloucester), and Western counties (Isle of Wight, Smithfield, and Windsor) would now be able to commute a year (or even more) than we were before. We wouldn’t necessarily have to worry about renting a $1500 a month Newport News apartment; we could just pay our parents rent and provide our own food budgets and such. Now, those of us who live less than fifty miles away are no longer going to be taking up those precious single rooms upperclassmen so desire to have. In fact…
The area you live in as a student of CNU.
Fifth, you’d get to see your pets sooner. I’m sorry, I just had to include this. While it’s not necessarily the most logical reason to understand why being able to commute a year earlier is super important, I do think it has an appeal. This would mean you’d have to be away from your precious baby one year less, and you’d get an extra year with them in turn. And I’ve heard that animals are the best stress relievers for students who are stressed with internships, grad school applications, midterms and finals, and just life in general. THINK OF THE DOGS, PEOPLE.
If you’d like to sign the housing change petition, or would like to read it so you know in full what it calls for, click here.
Stay classy, Captains! (Especially since Registration’s coming up…)