In Fall 2012, Longwood University juniors and seniors will not be guaranteed housing by the school. As of right now, the school may have 40-60 juniors and seniors that will either be placed on a waitlist or have to find off-campus housing according to Associate Director of Occupancy Management Jean Wilwohl.
The Office of Residential and Commuter Life (RCL) will look at completed credits but also take into consideration personal issues, financial and otherwise, in order to choose which upperclassmen will be given housing first and who will be placed on a waitlist. RCL will stay in contact with students who are on the waitlist and can provide a list of local landlords and updates on available off-campus apartments to those students who may be thinking about leaving the waitlist to live off-campus.
There is enough housing off-campus so that there is no reason to fear not being able to return to school based on lack of housing. Students on the waitlist may not get to live exactly where they are hoping, but they will not be left without a place to stay.
Another change for the upcoming fall semester is that freshmen and sophomores at the university will be guaranteed housing, but they will be on the main campus. Wilwohl stated, "We're going to give our juniors and seniors, who we're not guaranteeing housing to, preference for the apartment communities." The credit requirement to live in these communities is now 56 hours, which is what Longwood considers a junior student, according to Wilwohl.
The changes and issues facing RCL became a big focus about a year ago. French Residence Hall is currently scheduled to undergo construction at the end of the school year and will go offline and become the new home of the Information & Instructional Technology Services (ITTS) department.
A committee, which consisted of members of the Admissions, First Year Experience and RCL offices as well as some academic deans, was formed in order to discuss upcoming issues, according to Wilwohl. One of those issues was the 88 beds that will be lost after French Hall is no longer housing students.
"Once French went offline, we knew that we wouldn't be replacing those bed spaces. We knew that at some point everything was going to come to a head and there may become a point where Longwood's not going to be able to guarantee housing to every student that wants to live here," said Wilwohl. Many other universities cannot guarantee housing for students and Longwood is growing steadily. Wilwohl said, "We would love to, if we could. We're just reaching a point where our resources aren't there."
Because of this, the committee decided to reduce the amount of credit hours required to live off-campus. The committee reduced the number by eight hours in order to make it the bare minimum for students attending the school for two years (four semesters) – 12 credit hours per semester, a total of 48 hours. They did this in order to give those students who wanted to live off-campus that opportunity, which could leave space for those students who do still want to live on-campus.
"The big reason why we lowered the credit requirement was so we could release more people," said Wilwohl.
Wilwohl also shared that for the past four years, every single student that has applied to live off-campus, that had the credits to do so, has been released. RCL has made it no secret to students who is or is not eligible to live in off-campus housing this year.
Austin Hubbard, junior at Longwood, received a letter from RCL last semester. "The letters basically told us that we were eligible to move off-campus and that we needed to attend meetings if we were interested in applying and moving," said Hubbard.
Hubbard is just one of many upperclassmen who will be moving off-campus next year. The reduction in required credit hours and the fact that Longwood can't guarantee housing to juniors and seniors next year has caused a boom in business for local landlords. Walk2Campus Properties' Leasing and Customer Service Coordinator Amanda Hayzlett said, "I really think that's the reason we've leased up so quickly. At this point, we are about 84 percent leased. We were not at this point until about May last year."
Walk2Campus has been buying even more properties, is building a Campus Walk building and is even moving their office to the first floor of the Prizery building (which they also own and contains apartments for students). "We've had more people coming in at the beginning of the spring semester looking for housing because they want to make sure they've got housing before everything is taken on Longwood's campus," said Hayzlett.
RCL is trying their best to ease this transition for students. Wilwohl knows that going from "a system of guaranteed housing to a system where we might not be able to provide housing for everybody" can be stressful for everyone. She said, "Our goal is to make it as least stressful as possible … while also being upfront and honest with students."