Student housing changes planned for summer
As part of some alterations in student housing at Utah State University, a new theme-housing program called Lifestyles will take effect next fall, along with completed renovations in the central campus.
The university will add new freshman interest groups (FIGs), implement different lifestyle housing in Moen, Greaves, Wasatch, San Juan and Summit halls, and renovate Mountain View and Valley View towers, said Shannon Jolley, theme-housing coordinator.
Theme housing, Jolley said, is an umbrella term. It encompasses FIGs and Lifestyles.
Jolley said theme housing has been at USU for about three years now. This is the first year Housing and Food Services has placed someone as the coordinator, her job.
“[Theme housing] got off to a rocky and slow start,” Jolley said. “There was no central organization, and we weren’t making a difference.”
Last semester, Jolley said, focus groups were held with students to understand more of what students want in their college housing experience. Jolley and Whitney Flemming, an assistant director in Housing and Food Services, also visited different campuses around the nation, such as Iowa State, Illinois State and the University of Missouri-Columbia, earlier this year to see how other universities dealt with housing issues.
“A lot of them had really successful, but unique programs,” Jolley said.
She said they came back with the idea to start a FIG program.
FIG consists of five residential groups of 20 to 25 students linked to a general interest theme, Jolley said. The five are outdoor adventure, which is new for next year, healthy living, appreciating the arts, science and society, and elementary education, which is also new.
Students in a FIG program are housed in Mountain View and Valley View towers. Each group is assigned a peer mentor, who lives close by in Bullen Hall, Jolley said. Throughout the year, each FIG plans activities and has regular meetings with its peer mentor, Jolley said.
Living in a FIG program costs no extra money, she said. Most of the groups are already half full, and after SOAR this summer, Jolley expects them to be three-fourths to all-the-way full, she said.
There will also be changes made to the buildings on central campus, Jolley said.
She said new community kitchens are being added this summer to floors two through seven of the towers, with a lot of counter space and a large cooking area.
Additionally, the basements in the towers are being completely renovated.
“Renovations include a full kitchen and dining area, a home entertainment center and new gaming table,” Jolley said.
She also said the color scheme will be completely redone.
“It’s going to look like a totally relaxed night club,” she said.
An s-curved track lighting system will be added, along with new furniture, Jolley said. She said some of the new colors will be cobalt blue, silver and maroon.
“I’m really excited about that,” she said.
She also said it is very possible a state-of-the-art exercise room will be put in the first-floor lobbies of both towers this summer.
Other changes to campus housing include the addition to different academic and community lifestyles. In the academic lifestyles program, students live in Moen and Greaves halls. Optional lifestyles include sign language, business, engineering, computer science (new next year), biology (also new), and natural resources.
“Academic lifestyles are near key buildings on the university,” Jolley said.
She also said different USU departments sponsor the academic lifestyles.
Community lifestyles, Jolley said, are in Wasatch Hall, San Juan Hall and Summit Hall. These encompass the entire building and include a multicultural lifestyle, with a Native American emphasis, a global village, a leadership hall, and a new lifestyle next year called Casa Hispana, where students speak Spanish and learn about different Hispanic lifestyles.
In both the academic and community lifestyles programs, there will be a live-in mentor on each floor, Jolley said. Nonresident faculty mentors in some lifestyles will be available. All lifestyles will be open to students with any major, including undeclared.
-emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu