If yes, applying for housing should be on your list of things to do! Once a student has been admitted they can begin the process of applying for housing here: http://oregonstate.edu/uhds/apply-now .

Applying not only reserves your spot to live on campus but it also allows you to rank your preferred Residence Halls. It also allows you to create a Roommate Matching Network profile. The Roommate Matching Network is a neat tool students can use to find a roommate. Its kind of like eHarmony meets Facebook, it allows the student to create a profile and answer a few questions about themselves and then determine how compatible they are with a potential roommate.

We also give students the opportunity to choose exactly which room you will be living in.

So, if you haven’t already, apply for housing!

Important dates:

• May 20, 2013: New OSU students in academic groups (University Honors College, Engineering, and the Austin Entrepreneurship Program) may select rooms
• May 28 – June 2, 2013: New OSU students who completed a housing app before February 1, 2013 may select rooms
• June 5 – June 17, 2013 at 5 PM: New OSU students with completed housing applications may select rooms
• July 1, 2013: Assignment notifications available on MyUHDS for new students (dependent on space availability and application date)

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University will revise its First Year Experience program for new students over the next several years in an effort to help students succeed academically and improve retention.

A task force of OSU faculty, staff and students has been working on ways to help students thrive academically and personally during the first year. It concurs with what many national studies have found: The best way to ensure that students return for their sophomore year is to help them “connect” to campus in a meaningful way, said Susie Brubaker-Cole, associate provost for academic success at OSU and co-chair of the task force.

“What we’re seeking is a ‘high-touch’ experience for students during that first year when it becomes critical for them to interact in meaningful ways with other students, with faculty and with campus programs,” Brubaker-Cole said. “A lot of this happens in the classroom, but much of it is an extension of classroom learning that reaches into life on campus and the experiences you have as a member of campus communities.”

As an integral part of OSU’s initiative, first-year students will be required to live on campus for their first academic year beginning fall term of 2013. (my emphasis)

“If you look at top universities in the country in terms of academic success and student retention, almost all of them require students to live on campus their first year,” Brubaker-Cole said. “The learning and community-building that occur in campus residences are focal points of the first-year experience.”

OSU has done well with retention over the past few years, hovering around 82% of students returning for their sophomore year. While that is ahead of peer institutions, there is room for improvement that can be realized by tying together efforts of many parts of the student experience into a cohesive one. Concerns about ample housing offerings and exceptions for some students are addressed:

Tom Scheuermann, director of University Housing and Dining Services at OSU, says his office has assessed its overall on-campus housing capacity and will have adequate space for the live-on-campus requirement. In addition to the International Living-Learning Center that opened last year and houses 320 students, OSU’s on-campus capacity will get a boost from a new residence hall that is in design with a planned opening of fall 2014.

Scheuermann said on-campus capacity this fall (2012) should be about 4,300 spaces, which will grow by another 300 in 2014 with the new hall. And some floors in Finley Hall that will be off-line in the coming academic year, or used for office space, will reopen in fall of 2013.

In recent years, about 80 percent of the new-to-OSU freshmen have lived on campus.

There will be some exceptions granted to the new requirement, OSU officials say, though specifics have yet to be determined.

Jump to the full press release here.
-bv

It’s time for OSU students to choose their 2011-12 living options. We suggest applying for housing as soon as possible. Students wanting to live off campus are finding a tight rental market with a vacancy rate of about 1%. However, there are still many great options available for on-campus housing, including Halsell Hall, designed for upper-division students, and the new International Living Learning Center (ILLC) which opens in September, 2011.

Halsell hall is a great opportunity for returning students, as it is home to the Upper-division Experience (20 years-old and up) and Gender Inclusive Living programs, in an apartment-style living environment. This means students can choose to live in a room with any other student they wish including any gender identification.
Students and their suitemates have increased privacy and amenities with a shared living room/common area, private bathrooms, and a kitchenette. In Halsell students can connect with other residents of similar interests and values while enjoying the convenience of on-campus living.
An exciting new living option is the new ILLC opening on the southside of campus this fall. Domestic and international residents can have an international experience without ever leaving Corvallis. The ILLC will be a global village on campus, with about 50% of the residents representing many countries in Southeast Asia and beyond. In addition to program offering, there will be opportunities to pair up with language partners, cook meals together and engage with people different from yourself.
Each domestic student will be paired with an international roommate, and each room will share a bathroom with another room. Students can select to share a suite with a domestic friend and share the experience of living with international roommates.
Apply for on-campus housing today! Visit us online at oregonstate.edu/uhds or call 541-737-4771.

Courtesy of Life @ OSU

One of the most common questions I get from prospective students besides admission requirements and costs is: “how’s the food?” I’ve always known that the food at OSU is excellent but now UHDS boasts a very prestigious award to back up what our tastebuds have been telling us for years.

From Life @ OSU:

Housing and Dining has just been named this year’s Ivy Award Winner by Restaurants & Institutions Magazine for its demonstration of the highest standard of excellence in food, service and overall hospitality. The award places UHDS in the company of internationally recognized restaurants ranging from French Laundry to Le Cirque, and is one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.

This is a huge honor for our Housing and Dining Services folks! There’s a ton of hard work that goes in to serving thousands of students, faculty and staff high quality, locally grown and delicious food every single day during the school year. More importantly, the Ivy Award rewards a tradition of dining excellence which has been passed on to the campus community…

In other words, the food here is award winning!

-jm

Courtesy of Kathryn Magura, UHDS

Great story from the Chicago Tribune from a couple of weeks back. University of Chicago is implementing a gender inclusive housing policy following the lead of socially progressive campuses like OSU. Several of our housing folks were interviewed for the story.

From the Trib:

The University of Chicago, proud home of Nobel laureates, will undertake a bold experiment in chemistry: coed dorm rooms.

The pilot program allowing male and female students to sleep in the same room will start next month. It’s not intended for romantic couples, but they won’t be excluded, because the university won’t ask students why they want to live together.

The proposal was a student-led initiative, university officials said.

Coed dorm rooms are allowed at more than 30 campuses nationwide, but they have generally been socially liberal institutions, such as Wesleyan University, Oberlin College and Oregon State University. The policy is a departure at U. of C., which has a no-nonsense, nose-in-a-book reputation.

A quote from Josh Gana, OSU UHDS:

Josh Gana, assistant director for operations and facilities with university housing at Oregon State University, said their “gender inclusives” program has been a great success. The program was introduced in fall 2007, Gana said, and the university will have more than doubled the number of mixed-gender arrangements this year.

“It’s a way to accommodate diverse lifestyles,” he said. “It’s what students are demanding more and more.”

And from D.J. Zissen who is a Junior at OSU…Incidentally, I had the pleasure of supervising D.J. when he was a START Leader a couple of years ago:

D.J. Zissen, a 20-year-old junior at Oregon State University, is spending his second year in a residence hall that includes gender-inclusive rooms. Last year, he said his neighbor was transgender and going through the process of sex reassignment and hormone therapy. No one batted an eye, Zissen said.

“I enjoy that it’s letting us live with whomever we want,” he said.

It’s important to note that students are not ever automatically assigned to gender inclusive housing at OSU. If a student is interested, she/he must request it. If you are are interested in living in gender inclusive housing, you should contact OSU UHDS directly: 541.737.4771.

As a reminder for those of you who have been officially admitted for the fall of 2009 (CONGRATULATIONS!), you are now eligible to apply for housing! You can do so through the University Housing and Dining online application.

-jm

On a somewhat related note, don’t forget that if you are intending to attend OSU this fall, you will need to submit your Advance Tuition Deposit (ATD). You can find step-by-step instructions for paying the ATD here.

Have questions or need help? You can call 1.800.291.4192 to speak with someone from OSU Admissions or OSU Housing and Dining or you can leave your questions in the comment section below and we’ll help you find the right folks.

That’s all for now!

-jm