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Show 12 | MyWeberMedia.com | April 18, 2019 MyWeberMedia.com | April 18, 2019 | 13 CREATING AN ON-CAMPUS COMMUNITY AT A COMMUTER SCHOOL By HARRISON EPSTEIN Investigative Reporter Thirteen percent. Students who live in Weber State University housing for four years graduate at a 13 percent higher rate than their counterparts who don’t. While Weber has long been known as a commuter school, dorms remain a popular option for young students because it helps them transition into living on their own. According to Morgan Kerr, the marketing coordinator for WSU housing, the existence of the dorms helps students stick with the university. She has been with housing since 2012, when Kerr started as a resident adviser. “Students, freshman and sophomore students who live on campus are retained on a seven percent higher rate than their peers,” Kerr said. Since October 2000, Weber State has had a management contract with Century Campus Housing Management, a third-party company in charge of the day-to-day operations. On May 1, the university is bringing the management of the dorms in-house. While this represents a massive logistical overhaul for Weber State, according to Executive Director of Auxiliary Affairs Daniel Kilcrease there will be no change in how the buildings are managed. Before becoming the executive director of Student Affairs Auxiliaries in the fall of 2018, Kilcrease served as the director of housing at Weber State since 2002, before the opening of University Village. When the contract was originally signed back in 2000, it was done so by Vice President of Student Affairs Anand Dyal-Chand and was designated management over, “Promontory Tower, Wasatch Hall, Stansbury Hall and LaSal Hall.” The contract was amended in May 2002 to include University Village, just off Har- rison Boulevard. On the ground that once held Promontory, Wasatch, Stansbury and LaSal are now the three buildings of Wildcat Village. While the minutiae of housing are well-known among residents, a majority of the student body lives off campus. One student who did make a home of Weber State housing was Hunter Olsen. Olsen is finishing his senior year but plans on coming back for his self-described time as a “super senior.” A native of Taylorsville, Olsen made the choice to live in housing instead of commuting and has lived in both villages with an assortment of roommates. However, according to WSU, there are 26,000 students in the 2018-19 academic year while there are only enough rooms for a maximum occupancy of 1001 students — approximately 3.85 percent of the total student body, which means that at any given time, a narrow portion of the student population is living on campus. The dorms are available for any students, as long as they are registered in classes, regardless of whether or not they are traditional students. The only time a non-registered student can live in housing is during the summer, so long as the student is registered for either the spring semester before or fall semester after the summer. Despite allowing any student to stay, the dorms are tailored more for the traditional students of WSU. “Weber State is such a nontraditional school, and that’s a great mission that they have for our nontraditional students,” Kerr said. “But, it’s a great place for our traditional students to stay engaged on campus and have what they want out of college that they’ve dreamed of since they were little.” For Olsen, one prominent aspect of living on-campus was meeting people in a similar situation as him. “I was involved with people who are around my own age, I mean some people — I had a 40-year-old roommate — so that’s kind of out of the way,” Olsen said, “but essentially, it put me in an environment where it was a bunch of people like me, going through the same situation as me.” “But essentially it put me in an environment where it was a bunch of people like me going through the same situation as me.” HUNTER OLSEN WSU Student With the management changing, Kilcrease said the goal is to ensure students do not feel the transition in terms of the housing accommodations — just as it was not a requirement for residents to know about the differing interactions between their university and the administrators running their dorms. “The integration is as seamless as seamless goes,” Kilcrease said. “There’s not an, ‘Oh, and they collect rent at $600 a month and then decide how much to give the University.’ No.” While Weber State did not run the management of the buildings, they still employed the maintenance staff and, primarily, owned the land. “The university said, ‘Here’s land. You build the building. You fill the beds.’ We decide together on rates, and terms, and policies,” Kilcrease said. “Then, when we make money, we all make money.” Both sides profit when students enter the equation. Students rent each of the 1001 available beds, which are split between 476 beds at University Village and 525 at Wildcat Village. As of the 2018–19 academic year, there are 380 standard rooms and 96 luxury rooms within the five buildings of University Village. A standard room for the full academic year will cost $4,796 per student while the luxury room is $5,280. According to Kerr, University Village is designed more with upperclassmen in mind — students who are less interested in finding new friends and have more established social groups, adding that it was built more for students who want to focus on their studies. Things began to change for the residence hall landscape, literally, in 2011, with the beginning of what is now Wildcat Village. Before construction began on the new dorms, the university demolished all of the original buildings except for Promontory, which stood until 2012. In successive years beginning in 2011, WSU unveiled Residence Hall 1, Stewart-Wasatch Hall and Residence Hall 3. Costs are different for rooms in different buildings with varying prices that are adjusted even more with the addition of meal plans. The cheapest meal plan costs $2,500 annually, and plans are required for students who live at Wildcat Village. This village is designed to be more helpful for freshman and sophomore students and built to help them increase their social circles. “They have to go to the dining hall, and while there, they have interactions with other students,” Kerr said. “In Residence Hall 3, for example, there’s community living rooms, community kitchens and community bathrooms, so they are forced to go out and meet people, and it’sJOSHUA a really good environWINEHOLT | The Signpost ment to do that.” Room prices range from $3,345 per year in an RH3 double room to $5,438 per year in an RH1 super single, which includes a free Powder Mountain ski season pass. “It’s not the best price to live someplace, CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 KELLY WATKINS | The Signpost |