Campus Housing sign-ups are quickly approaching for the 2017-2018 academic year, and the Department of Housing and Residence Life does not expect the cost of campus housing to increase.

“We have not had an increase in housing rents for the last three years,” said Bonnie Burchett, the Director of Housing and Residence Life. “We will not know about an increase until the Board of Trustees meet later on this semester. I think that if we did have an increase that it would be a modest increase.”

The department is also offering more private room selections at a reduced price in the upcoming school year for students who would rather room alone. Dossett Hall, West Hall, Powell Hall and Lucille-Clement Hall will be the residence halls offered at a reduced rate.

“We reduced the private room rate for these halls for fall 2015, fall 2016 and will again for fall 2017,” Burchett said. “We would end up with some space in these traditional residence halls, so we thought that by reducing the private room rate that we could offer some less expensive private rooms, and it would increase the occupancy as well. We had 35 private rooms in these halls for fall 2015, 50 for fall 2016 and currently 67 for spring semester.”

Overall, the department wants to do everything they can to make students on campus feel comfortable and succeed.

“We are always striving to improve our services, programs and facilities,” Burchett said. “We are working with facilities to improve our service and efficiency in regards to maintenance and custodial. We are working with a consultant company on a master plan for housing, partnering with academic and administrative units to provide academic initiatives to our residents which includes tutoring, study-sessions, Living-Learning Communities, et cetera.”

Housing sees success with their academic initiative programs.

“We have developed a Residential Curriculum that provides a plan for what students can learn as a result of living on campus,” Burchett said. “We continue to see residents do well academically with about a third of our residents make the Dean’s List each semester.”