The pandemic stole an important formative experience from many students. Living in community and learning alongside peers is an essential step in becoming a thriving adult. For these impacted students, on-campus housing is more valuable than ever before. Our halls are places where students can continue to learn, grow, develop, build relationships, and even make mistakes in a safe and supportive environment.
Most of our sophomores and many of our juniors and seniors return to campus housing each year; it’s what makes our halls special at UP! In addition to traditional double rooms, returning students and their friend groups can select to live in apartments, suites with private living rooms, quads with private bathrooms, triples (some of these are HUGE!), or even single rooms.
Here are just a few ways that living on campus can positively impact your student:
- Academics – research links campus living with better grades and higher graduation rates. Many of our halls have study programs.
- Connection – Students who live on campus often enjoy a stronger sense of community than their off-campus peers. Students in our residence halls often find friends for life!
- Safety & Security – Campus Safety personnel monitor our residence halls 24/7 and quickly respond to any student concerns or emergencies. After using their cards to unlock a building, students are often greeted by a student worker whose job it is to monitor activity in our lobbies.
- Support – Hall Directors, Pastoral Residents, and Resident Assistants live and work in our residence halls offering support and care and overseeing students’ well-being. They know your students by name and can support them in small and big ways!
- Access – Campus residents live near the library, classroom buildings, and other campus resources. This makes it easier to attend classes, interact with faculty, meet with advisors, study and do projects with peers, use academic support services, and attend programs and events. It makes attending an evening event safer and easier during our wet and cold winters.
- Dining – Students living off-campus often do not have a realistic expectation of how much time grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up takes. Residential students have meal plans which gives them easy access to a hot meal or a quick lunch (and no dirty dishes to wash!).
- Ease – Campus housing includes all utilities including Wi-Fi, garbage services and laundry rooms. Our communal spaces are professionally cleaned by our custodial staff each day. Our maintenance staff can quickly respond to and resolve any facilities concerns, unlike many of the private landlords in the area.
- Summer housing – We also offer flexible summer housing that is charged by the week. This is a great option for interns, student teachers, nurses with clinical experiences, and more.
Here are some typical frustrations that we hear from students in non-university housing:
Many local landlords pressure our students to sign 12-month leases ‘now!’. A feeling of panic ensues–students are told that off-campus housing is scarce, and they worry that if they wait, then all the good options will be gone, so they sign a less-than-perfect lease agreement with a group that is scrambled together. A lot can change in a student’s life during this waiting period (friend groups, jobs/internships, or even study abroad etc.). Students in these situations often call us in May looking for on-campus housing, but they are contractually locked-in to a lease with a landlord.
Additionally, we frequently see students navigating complex off-campus situations involving personal safety and home security concerns, maintenance issues, tensions with non-student neighbors, and, quite often, tensions with housemates. Frustrations about who paid the cable bill, and whose long showers keep spiking the heating bill can fracture friend groups without the support of trained residence hall staff to have those conversations in fair and safe ways. We often can’t help in these situations because students are renting from private landlords who are not affiliated with UP.
We would love to welcome back your student to our halls next year! The University has space available with many options for your student to choose from.
Director of Residence Life Andrew Weingarten welcomes the opportunity to chat with you or your student about housing options anytime and can be reached at weingart@up.edu or at 503-943-7205.