Residence Life guarantees smooth housing sign-ups

Over the last three years there have been around 2,480 students living in the residence halls. With this many students the University has a housing sign-up process to keep things running smoothly.

“The housing sign-up occurs in multiple phases,” said Julie Phelps, assistant director of Residence Life facilities and administrative services. “The first phase starts in November and goes through May.”

In this phase, students go online to fill out our contract for the next academic year. In this contract they can state their preference for roommates and special housing options. The next phase starts in January where all current residence hall students must go online to renew their contract to reserve a space in the halls.

Suites. This is broken down into three sub-phases. These sub-phases are bed/ same suite sign-up, different suite sign-up, then open suite sign-up for anyone who is eligible to live in the suites.

The next phase is South Fork Two. Only students who are eligible to live in this sophomore housing option are able to sign up.

“The final phase is when we go back to traditional halls,” said Phelps. This gets split into sub-phases as well. They are same bed/same hall, different bed/same hall and any hall.

After this process, dates and times are assigned to the hall sign-up process to ensure that only the students who are eligible to sign-up at that time are doing so. This is all controlled through a housing management system.

“First and second year students not living on campus in the halls as mandated by the two-year residency requirement set by the (Wisconsin) Board of Regents, may commute from their parent’s home,” said Phelps. Student’s parents home must fall within the approved commuting distance set by Residence Life.

Upper-class students may commute as well, living in off-campus rental houses and or/apartments. Residence Life is not involved with the process of finding a place off campus; they only work with on-campus housing. They do have a link on their website called places4students.com. This is a website which helps off-campus students find affordable housing.

A few years ago the enrollment was so high that some students were living at hotels, but this is definitely not the case this year. Enrollment is low this semester and the University will be taking Johnson Hall offline for the 2012-2013 school year. According to the Residence Life’s website, Johnson Hall will be closing for major facility improvements and renovations. Students who are planning to stay in their dorm during break will need to remember to sign up for break housing. No student will be allowed to stay on campus during a break without first registering and signing a contract.

Student’s request for housing will only be reviewed during business hours, which is Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. If a student does register over the weekend, there request will not be answered until the next business day. For more information on the sign up process and all other housing information students can go online at http://www.uwrf.edu/Housing.