By Robb Murray
The Free Press
MANKATO —
More students than ever before are living on campus at Minnesota State University.
And it’s no wonder why. Have you seen the dorms these days?
Sure, you can get the “basic” room with no frills for the basic price.
But jump up a price tier or two and all kinds of options become available. Above basic is the renovated rooms tier, with air conditioning, better hallway lighting, wooden doors, new furniture and pre-lofted beds.
On the top tier is the Julia A. Sears Residence Hall, the Taj Mahal of dorm living on MSU’s campus. The Sears suites have higher ceilings, spacious living areas, a bathroom that is shared with two units — not an entire floor — and staircases with stunning views of campus.
At MSU, residence hall living is all about options. It’s also a far cry from the dorm living of yesteryear.
Twenty years ago, a dorm room was a dorm room. Frills were few and far between.
Today, to compete for bodies, colleges and universities need to play the amenities game and make sure students, when considering an institution, can see themselves living there for the next four (or five) years.
Josh Braband, a senior living on the second floor of a remodeled part of McElroy Hall, said he’s very happy with his choice to stay on campus.
He says he’s comfortable and will love the privacy of his single room.
“The air conditioning is fabulous, especially during a humid week,” he said.
He signed up early, he said, and he’s glad he did. Compared to dorm rooms of the past, this room is downright roomy.
Movie posters line one wall. Across the room is his loft, beneath which sits a flat-screen TV. Facing the screen: a pair of comfy rocking chairs.
He chose to spend senior year on campus for one main reason: proximity to campus and to easy food.
“It’s closer,” he said, “and I didn’t want to have to make my own meals.”
That proximity, he says, makes up for any costs that may cut down by living off campus.
And from the university’s perspective, it’s another body staying close by.
In recent years, the university has spent time and money getting students to make strong connections to the university community and become more engaged.
One example is a program called “The First 50 Days,” which is rolling out this fall for its maiden run.
The idea is to get the message to students that engaging in the life of the university right away can set the right tone for success on many levels throughout the year.
Students who feel connected perform better academically, they say. Plus, it’s just more fun that way.
But Cindy Janney, MSU’s director of residential life, says the notion that they want students to keep students here on the weekends doesn’t accurately reflect the spirit of what they’re doing.
For years, MSU has had a reputation as a suitcase college, and for a while, there were efforts made to try and encourage students to stay here during the weekend.
According to Janney, however, the dominant view should be something more like this: It doesn’t matter what day of the week a student feels connected to the university; it’s the connection itself that matters more.
Further, if a student is going home on weekends, she said, it’s usually a sign that there’s a strong support network in place for that student. In most cases, a strong support network only means positive things for academic performance and overall appreciation of the college experience.
Dorm life is just one aspect of that experience, but it’s one the people in residential life have spent time and money to make as attractive as possible.
Many of the rooms have new furniture, giving what Janney described as more of an IKEA look to the place.
Floors have been replaced. Steel doors have been recycled in favor of wooden ones. New lighting brightens up the hallways. Wall-mounted (not window mounted) air conditioners cool things down.
“We like it a lot,” said Karissa Knutson of La Crescent, Minn. “We’ve been over to (unrenovated floors of) McElroy. Those rooms are really ugly.”
Added roommate Tessa Brown, gazing around the room’s upper perimeter storage, “The storage up top is amazing.”
Remodeling, of course, costs money. But the work done in the Crawford and McElroy buildings — solidly built in the 1960 — comes at a fraction of the cost of new buildings.
Janney estimated the cost to remodel 200 beds at between $1.5-$2 million. A new building with that many beds would have cost $15-$20 million.
Funding for residence hall projects, by the way, is off the taxpayer grid for the most part. There are no state appropriations to cover any costs associated with residential life or its construction projects.
Money for building a new residence hall comes directly from fees paid for room and board.
Not much has been done to the venerable Gage towers, the tallest living structures in Mankato. That’s because if all goes according to plan, the 2011-2012 academic year will be its final one.
A new building is already planned, construction of which is tentatively scheduled to begin in March.
