Stonehill College Joins Other Local Colleges with Lack of Housing

By Erin Shannon

EASTON, Mass.- Stonehill College is offering new housing incentives to relieve overcrowding, a problem other local schools are used to.

At Bridgewater State College only 36 percent of 8,497 full-time undergraduate students live on campus. At University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, half of the 9,000 students live on campus.

UMass Dartmouth recently changed their policy so students no longer have a housing guarantee. Students with the most credits get first priority.

“I’d be nervous if I was going into my sophomore year,” said Patrick Geary, a rising junior at UMass Dartmouth, explaining the concern of students who get last pick for housing without a guarantee.

Stonehill’s enrollment is 2,347 and 89 percent live on campus. Stonehill has a four-year housing guarantee for its students. Next academic year starting fall of 2009, there won’t be enough student housing. That’s because more students are expected to be enrolled.

Reverend Mark Cregan, president of Stonehill, has said that his goal is to gradually increase enrollment to 2,500 by 2012. A dorm is scheduled to break ground May 1 but it will not be open by the fall when enrollment is expected to be higher.

“The current economic conditions forced all colleges to reassess their admissions models,” said Brian Murphy, Dean of Admissions at Stonehill.

This year the college accepted 231 more students than last year and a total of 3310 for a class of 640 first year students. Like most other colleges, more students have been accepted “up front” instead of being put on a wait list said Murphy.

“These additional accepts will be needed to offset the number of students who cannot afford to attend this year because of worsening economic conditions in their family,” said Murphy.

Murphy also said that the college did not want to build a new dorm without being able to fill it. The Board of Trustees wants to be able to fill the dorm when it is built. The school came up with plans to deal with the dorm room shortage until the new building is open: pay students to live off campus and pay students to triple up in rooms.

“In the many years I have been here, we have never done anything like this,” said Ali Hicks, director of residence life. “This is a onetime thing.”

All current full time students who live in dorms could sign up for a grant of $2,500 per semester. It was offered to the first 35 students who signed up to live off campus. The students can still get back into the dorms later if they choose.

Also students who chose to triple up in double rooms would get a $750 American Express gift card each semester- totaling $1,500 for the year.

“We don’t want everyone tripling,” said Murphy. The combination of the incentives and people studying abroad or doing internships equals less tripling.

The incentives were well received. It took about two days for the commuter incentive to fill up and now there is an extensive waiting list.

“We recognize people are struggling with tuition and room and board,” said Peter Wiernicki, associate director of residence life at Stonehill.

Also 12 rooms in one underclassmen dorm have been renovated to be more conducive to tripling.

Stonehill hopes that the new dorm will be ready for the fall of 2010. It will hold 250 students and consist of small suites for juniors and seniors.

“There will be smaller, intimate suites,” said Hicks. “It’s not like anything we have on campus now.”

The building should relieve the problem of overcrowding in the other halls. Until then, Stonehill is doing what they can to ensure the promised four-year housing guarantee.

“We want to do what’s right,” said Wiernicki.