MACUHO – Fireside Chat: Housing Lottery and Selection

March 11, 2016 1pm

Introductions

  • Brian Medina, MACUHO President and Area Coordinator of Residence Life, Frostburg State University
  • Jennifer Garvin, Director Ancillary Services, Housing and Food Services, Penn State University
    814-865-7543
  • 14,000 beds!

Housing Contract Process Development

  • What does your on-campus housing population look like?
  • Reviewing a residency requirement: are first-year students (or others) required to live on campus? If your institution does not have a residency requirement, is your campus administration supportive of this initiative?
  • Who do you want to be (as on-campus housing)?
  • Bucknell and Dickinson – 4-year residency requirement
  • PSU – 1st year residency requirement
  • Frostburg – 2-year residency starting Fall 2017
  • Pros and cons – Residence Life is a pro!
  • Con – returning students and admissions for new students
  • How to manage 100%+ occupancy? Bed space…
  • Budgets when not meeting 100%, maybe 98% or 96%
  • Determine the demand for on-campus housing. Are you turning away students? Why/why not is on-campus housing popular? Think about what you can do to increase interest in living on campus. Use assessment tools to guide areas of focus.Dealing with entitlement.
  • PSU – turning away students, too many!
  • Alvernia – tipping point, filling everything but just starting to need more beds
  • Frostburg – overfilled, need a new residence hall
  • TCNJ – struggling with on-campus vs off-campus for upper class residents
  • Live, work, play environment – appealing for students to access nearby stores/restaurants
  • No current assessments on this
  • PSU – exit surveys for leaving campus, why did they leave? Good information to request more funding for res hall renovations to serve students on campus.
  • Offer guaranteed housing for some groups. Would there be groups on campus that would benefit from this practice? (honors program, sororities, scholarship students, minorities, etc.). What incentives can you offer to on-campus students?
  • PSU – sororities have their own process, honors, athletes are guaranteed, some upper class students
  • Critique is that preference given to some groups but overbooked… how to prioritize some groups over others?
  • Eligibility guidelines – specific program applications or minimum requirements, credits earned or academic standing
  • Builds structure and fairness in the process
  • Frostburg – only guarantee is for RAs… rest are through lottery
  • Brandon Chandler – Rutgers, Camden – feedback about cost from residents vs off-campus competition
  • Cost analysis for folks that make the choice to go off campus – amenities are often not included, resources on campus, 12-month lease (non-inclusive) and 9-month housing (all-inclusive). Can be beneficial or a challenge, depending on ability to accommodate…
  • Review Special Living Options or Living/Learning Communities – are there eligibility requirements to receive an offer?
  • Frostburg – only living-learning options are first year students (Honors, STEM, etc)
  • Review housing facilities. Does your institution have a progress, detailed capital plan in place to maintain/upgrade facilities? Is deferred maintenance issues being addressed?
  • Deferred maintenance items – what can be focused on sooner than later?
  • Rutgers, Camden – both housing and res life – checklist to update deferred maintenance, priority through the budget. New building assessment, but still need more from other buildings. Focusing on structure, less about amenities. Upgrades to furniture (reupholster, not replacement), new carpeting. Dishwashers, WiFi, cable/satellite contract. Suites and apartments vs traditional halls.
  • Jan – bathrooms at PSU, traditional vs suites vs in each room
  • Gender issues can be less of a concern
  • More options for assignments and students
  • TCNJ – lounges, new TVs, make better programming spaces
  • Renovate vs building a new hall in that footprint
  • Meditation or prayer rooms? Music spaces? No…
  • Frostburg now has a chapel available to Music Majors next to their residence hall
  • Share exit survey (PSU) with the group – maybe add to Fireside Chat website alongside meeting notes
  • Process Details
  • Timing? Multifaceted? All at once?
  • Rutgers, 800 beds, very simple --- 1 week to select room after you apply, no over-occupancy problem
  • Dickinson – rising students, 3 nights of selection in late April, guarantee all 4 years for those attending the process, some housing not assigned until August
  • Bucknell – very similar… summer melt wait for Sophomores to place additional in conjunction with FY students. Fraternities and sororities process, substance free living, others
  • Sounds like Bucknell and Dickinson can hang out more…!
  • TCNJ – everyone who applies for housing can select their room, 2 day process, staggered selection. Not everyone will get their selection every year…
  • Frostburg – 1 day process, selection by credits, mostly focused on 3 upper class halls. Everything else is done over the summer for first year (60-65% of our residential population is first year).
  • PSU – 9 lotteries at different times, very confusing for some parents and students, deadlines and timelines, so many options
  • Will scrap and re-write process, given the complexity
  • Prioritize who receives space on campus - do some groups receive “preferential” treatment or a higher ranking to receive an offer.
  • Priority for Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores (Dickinson and Bucknell)
  • Some buildings are earmarked for specific populations, corral to areas of campus
  • TCNJ – Sophomores first
  • Frostburg – all by credits, so mostly Seniors first (about 5% of population), 7 FY buildings, 1 mixed of all ages (all-female hall)
  • Determine consequences for when students do not follow the process.
  • Rutgers --- not get building or room assignment that you prefer. Otherwise, no severe consequence.
  • Frostburg – same as Rutgers, some buildings are seen as better than others (quad vs traditional halls). We email ALL students who don’t go through lottery and have their intentions in writing for the next year.
  • Dickinson – room selection indicator for retention of all students on campus (transferring students). Notify students that they missed selection, what’s their status?
  • Future room increases… no language specific but about financial commitments overall
  • Bucknell – charged for housing for a ‘fake room’ and selected for meal plan… triggers folks to recant and say they aren’t coming back
  • 4-year residency, you have to apply to live off
  • No new contract or application, it’s a 4-year contract (same with Dickinson)
  • Nothing about room rates, tradition of 3% increase
  • PSU – space reserved (fake room) but cannot bill someone without classes (Bursar)
  • Room and board fees don’t generate, sit until after enrollment
  • Many fail to participate or receive an offer, expire in 3 days (don’t reoffer, space offered elsewhere). Caution – parents and student calls!
  • Determine whether exceptions to the process will be permitted; if so, what justification will be needed?
  • Medical accommodations –
  • PSU does not guarantee ADA students, private room with bath, once contracted they will honor
  • Wheelchairs will be accommodated
  • Blind or mobility accommodations
  • TCNJ – will block off some of these rooms for transferring students or new students
  • DSS assists pre-process
  • Alvernia – self-selection or automatic placement?
  • PSU requires preferences by a deadline, roommate preference. Anxieties not often provided accommodation.
  • Bucknell – students with a need can either do Director of Accessibility Resources (with documentation) and that may determine location. They can also get a lottery number and go through process… potential for upgrade, may want to live in an apartment complex. DAR – focuses on individual, not friends as accommodation.
  • Dickinson – similar to Bucknell. Lottery number impacted those requesting accommodations… rather than a flood after a bad number is pulled.
  • Renew documentation every year or all 4 years? Unless needs change, the supporting documentation suffices all 4 years.
  • Frostburg – similar w/ other folks, DSS, Health, and Counseling submissions before the selection process.
  • Need to understand what loopholes exist in your process and figure out ways to avoid/prevent.
  • Medical accommodations loopholes
  • Rutgers defers to DSS
  • Bucknell – deterrent that they could not pull in friends
  • Dickinson – students playing the system, had to tighten up the process, specify who counts as a person who submits documentation? Gluten crisis!
  • Gluten free living options? None from our current group… good question
  • Liability with those in an environment where gluten or other allergies are countered with accidents
  • Documentation of process, internal and external
  • Email tracking
  • How do you communicate with your students? BCC? Internal system to track them reading the emails?
  • TCNJ – StarRez – target groups internally
  • Rutgers – MailChimp to try something different, helps with read receipts, 12,000 sends a month for MailChimp, test it out
  • Frostburg – just BCC, cross our fingers and toes…
  • PSU – Campaign Monitor – very beneficial, click tracking, pay based on usage, volume higher than MailChimp… 25,000 emails!
  • What system limitations exist that you need to consider?
  • Process for handling medical accommodations
  • Room selection – self-select or processed by staff, first-year and/or upper-class
  • Request/offer process vs. renewal process
  • Timeline for contract process
  • Pressure for students to secure housing early in the fall semester.When is the best time to run the process?How long of a process will work for your market?
  • Is the off-campus housing market strong and active? Is there a connection between the off-campus market and your institution?
  • Marketing and Communication
  • Sending the right message
  • What happens when you have more demand that space available?
  • Communication with students…marketing material, information sessions, and collaboration with other departments. Getting the word out!
  • Balancing message content

Exit Survey Fall 2015 - UP

Q1 It is our understanding that you are living off campus this year. We'd like to ask you a few questions about your decision to pursue off-campus housing. This survey will take less than five minutes to complete and will be used to improve our services to students and inform decisions about building renovations in the future.Thank you very much for taking the time to provide us with this important information.