Nathaniel Rioux
Staff writer
Recently students received an email from Resident Life regarding a new policy pertaining to students living off campus. The push is to have as many students as possible living on campus by fall of 2013. The reasoning behind this push stems from a study conducted by the college that claims students that live on campus have a tendency to have a higher GPA. They also claimed that due to the building of new students housing, they will be no need to live off campus. In the past ten years the college has renovated, built, or purchased many buildings for student housing in order to keep students on campus. Although most students agree that the new buildings are an exciting prospect for new students. Some older students don’t feel that this restriction is really necessary.
“I can understand why they want everybody to live on campus, but I can also see this causing more problems for prospective students.” Henry McKinney, 12.
One of the more attractive ideas of living off campus comes from living in an apartment. But as one student points out that Afton is, “kind of like the on campus alternative to off campus apartments.” Mike Remmes, 13. And while this may be an attraction for students that want to live in an apartment, the spaces to live in there are very limited.
The benefits of living on campus are beneficial, such as easy access to clubs and sporting events, a closer community of friends, and various other bullet points. And with Roanoke College supporting record numbers each year for freshmen students, perhaps this rule is something that students can live with.
