Summer housing hot commodity on campus

The closure of these buildings has resulted in a dramatic change in the demographic of students staying the summer.

"Typically, we have a handful of students who are actually taking classes that stay," Ernie Stufflebean, assistant dean of students and director of residence life, said. "And when I say ‘handful,’ I mean typically in the area of four to eight. Just to give you an idea of how many are taking classes, it looks like we have 57 students taking summer classes."

This number includes only those summer students staying on campus. The total number of students taking courses, either online or on campus, is 245, which is a significant increase over last summer’s 172. In addition, while the majority summer students last year attained only four credit hours, this year’s summer residents are taking more classes, with some taking as many as twelve credit hours.

Two other significant factors that affected summer housing registration this year are the senior incentive that allows seniors—those with 90 credit hours or more as of Aug. 1—to remain on campus during the summer for free, and the reduced cost for everyone else. Last summer, those remaining on campus to take classes were charged $600 a month, or $150 a week, while this summer, they only have to pay $200 a month, or $50 a week.

Moving for students staying the summer will work as follows. Students staying for the duration of the summer may keep their belongings in their current rooms and may, if they wish, stay in their current rooms until May 24. From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on May 24, students will register in their summer rooms and will be expected to vacate their spring rooms by midnight.

"Immediately after that, we’ll be turning around the dorms for summer camps and summer visitors," Stufflebean said.

Students and their belongings will then remain in their summer rooms until Aug. 7, at which point they will register in their rooms for the next fall and move into them. Students staying less that the duration of the summer, however, will have to move back home twice. Summer camps begin before Session One of classes, meaning that these students cannot leave their belongings in their spring rooms, and summer camps continue after the end of Session Two, preventing them from moving directly into their rooms for next fall as well.

"We do [summer registration] after fall housing registration because we try to minimize the amount of moving that students have to do between summer and fall, so if we can allow a student to move into a spot where they’re going to be for the upcoming fall term, we allow them to try to move into that spot in the summer," Stufflebean said.

Due to this policy, rising seniors living in the Senior House will move directly into their rooms for next school year.

"We’re going to wait to see if we have any attrition from the fact that a lot of students requested private rooms, and we accommodate those on a first-come-first-served basis pending availability," Stufflebean said, anticipating one issue that may arise from increased summer housing registration. "Obviously with this many students staying this summer, we weren’t able to honor very many private room requests because we fill almost every bed we have for summer housing."

One important change in the summer operations of the Hill is that the Cafeteria will be open during the summer in addition to the Cage. Dining Services will serve breakfast and lunch on every weekday during the summer, and students will be allowed into any additional meals that accompany William Jewell summer camps. Students who wish to take advantage of this service may put cash on their Student IDs by visiting the Dining Services Office outside of the Cafeteria in the Union and writing a check.

"With this many students on campus this summer, we’re going to gauge how well that’s received by students, and we may talk about the possibility of summer meal plans in the future, but we kind of want to see what the response of students is going to be in regard to that," Stufflebean said.

The Office of Student Affairs is still accepting summer housing applications, and students may submit an application to be waitlisted for spots as they potentially become available.

Eric Lewis can be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.