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The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Three-Year Housing Rule Considered

ALEXANDER BROWN/THE HOYA
ALEXANDER BROWN/THE HOYA
The 2010 Campus Plan relocated 65 students living on 36th Street townhouses to on-campus apartments such as Village A during the fall of 2013.

A six-semester on-campus housing requirement for all undergraduates is currently under consideration, with the university set to announce a decision by the end of the month. The policy change would require all juniors to live on campus. Currently, only sophomores and freshmen are required to live on campus, while juniors are free to move into the surrounding neighborhood, although relatively few choose to do so.

The potential requirement is part of the university’s effort to meet the stipulations of the 2010 Campus Plan agreement, under which Georgetown must house an additional 385 students on campus by the fall of 2015. Construction of the Northeast Triangle Residence Hall, which is scheduled to open by the fall of 2016, and renovation of Ryan and Mulledy Halls, the former Jesuit residences, are also part of the university’s push for 385 additional beds. The two projects, however, still leave many of the 385 beds unaccounted for — a gap that a third-year housing requirement could help fill.

The new Georgetown University Student Association leadership, led by GUSA President Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15), has expressed fears that the prospective housing change would place limitations on transfer students or those who study abroad.

“Our biggest concern is the idea of a third-year, six-semester requirement, which would then inevitably mean that if you are studying abroad junior year or if you’re a transfer student, you will be automatically required to live on campus your senior year,” Tezel said. “And we don’t think that freedom of choice should be taken away from students.”

According to Associate Vice President for Community Engagement Lauralyn Lee, the university is set to invest $50 million in renovation and construction over the next three years in order to add the required number of on-campus beds.

“We’re currently in talks with administrators who are predisposed to the option that will make it easiest to ensure that we hit the requirements of 385 additional students on campus by fall 2015,” Tezel said. “But we are very much pushing for a less restrictive policy being put in place so that we can preserve that freedom for students, specifically study-abroad and transfer students, as well as continue to maintain a system in which the university is incentivizing students to live on campus instead of requiring them to do so.”

Other options for changing next year’s policy include requiring sophomores to live in dorms rather than apartments, providing a third year of guaranteed housing to juniors or instituting a financial aid guarantee.

“It comes down to the fact that they don’t want — the people in the Georgetown community, our neighbors — don’t want students living in the neighborhood, because they don’t want to have students disrupt them,” GUSA Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ’15)  said. “So they want more students to live on campus.”

In addition to requiring an extra 385 beds, the Campus Plan relocated 65 students living on 36th Street townhouses to on-campus apartments and dormitories during the fall of 2013. According to the Zoning Commission Order No. 10-32, 450 students once living on 36th Street or in other parts of the Georgetown neighborhood will be housed by the university by the fall of 2015.

“We have been keeping the neighbors who participate in the Georgetown Community Partnership informed of our efforts around student housing, but the decisions about what housing will be constructed, what type it will be, what it will look like, where it will be, whether and what policy changes may be implemented are decisions that are being made by the university administration, in consultation with its students,” Lee said.

The GCP facilitates communication between Georgetown University and the surrounding community; the GCP will be involved in the development of a 20-year campus plan, which is set to begin in 2018. Discussions about the new requirement have not reached a conclusion yet, but GUSA expects administrators to announce a decision just before final exams.

“They were kind of playing with policies that would allow them to hit that number,” Tezel said. “And I think especially after students made it clear in last semester’s referendum that they did not want a satellite campus, it put the administration in a position where they would have to consider additional policies or requirements to meet the bed count necessary.”

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