Dorm Article
Aug 27, 2007 8:21:10 GMT -6
Post by Big D on Aug 27, 2007 8:21:10 GMT -6
I thought this was a pretty good article done by the Tribune. It's all about how we continue to try and shed the commuter image.
Does anyone know if more dorms are planned or are we done? I'd love to see many more people living on campus. In the past decade (since 97), UIC has doubled the percentage of freshmen living on campus.
Link
At UIC, walk to dorm replacing drive home
With the opening of UIC's newest dorm, half of the college's freshmen now live on campus -- a departure for what has historically been considered a commuter school
By Jodi S. Cohen | Tribune higher education reporter
August 27, 2007
When she championed construction of more dormitories at the University of Illinois at Chicago about eight years ago, Sylvia Manning was "chewed out," the chancellor recalls, by a now-retired state senator who accused her of betraying the campus' urban-commuter mission.
She did it anyway. Stukel Towers, the university's third new dorm in six years, opened last week, welcoming 750 students -- and their overflowing carloads of clothing, lamps, bulletin boards, posters and pictures. If it weren't for the Dan Ryan Expressway noise and the Sears Tower views, the scene of awkward introductions among roommates and tearful goodbyes with parents would have fit right in at the university's bucolic Urbana-Champaign campus.
When the new school year begins Monday, a record 50 percent of UIC freshmen will live in university housing, up from 24 percent a decade ago. Intended as an affordable commuter school when the campus moved to its current, crowded location near Greektown in the 1960s -- known then as the Circle campus -- UIC now is a more frequent choice for students who want the benefits of city living but the independence of a residential college experience.
"This last 750 students may be the tipping point," Manning said. "The focus has been on creating a better community, a stronger community for students at UIC. Part of that has been the need to get a critical mass of students living on campus or within a mile of campus."
The transformation to more of a 24-hour campus is cheered by those who expect learning to be enhanced by so many students staying around after classes. Others wonder whether the change could call attention to socioeconomic differences among students who can afford a dorm room and those who live with their parents.
"I guess it could turn into more of a typical university," said Rob Soltys, a senior who lives with his mother near Midway Airport. "I think we're going to see more of the Abercrombie & Fitch, Polo-wearing suburbanites. It's an OK thing. Our campus is so diverse that nobody is going to notice that kind of thing happening."
Students and faculty said they hope the additional housing could lead to more student organizations, activities and school spirit on a campus known to shut down by 4 p.m. as commuters try to beat traffic home. A new fitness and recreation center, commercial space along Halsted and Maxwell Streets, and a planned 3,000-seat convocation center also are creating a more residential feel.
"They're making it more suburban," Melissa Niemann, 18, of Homer Glen said as she looked out Stukel Towers' 13th-floor windows to views of nearby Linens & Things, Dominick's and a DSW shoe store.
"Twenty years ago, it wouldn't have even been safe to live here," said her roommate, Crystal Rueck, 18, of Lockport.
Bob Mirabal, who was helping his daughter Natalie move into the dorm, was in awe. As an engineering student in the early 1980s, he lived with his parents in Oak Lawn and drove to UIC for classes. That's what all the undergraduates did.
"You went to classes, and you went home. Maybe you went to the library," Mirabal said. "You didn't have any of this campus life. There was no student camaraderie."
That wasn't the case as he moved his daughter into a four-person suite with a semiprivate bathroom. Signs in the hallways promoted board game get-togethers on Wednesdays and "mocktails and movies" on Fridays.
The $124 million dorm boasts lofted study lounges, meeting rooms, shared kitchens, a coffee shop and a 150-seat auditorium for student performances. Residents also get an all-you-can-eat meal plan in the cafeteria, open from 7 a.m. to midnight, and free laundry service -- the selling point for students' mothers, said Tony Martin, director of housing.
Natalie Mirabal said she likely wouldn't have enrolled at UIC if it still were the commuter campus her father attended.
"That would have changed my mind," said Mirabal, who also considered Illinois State University and Northern Illinois University.
Until 1988, UIC was strictly a commuter school for undergraduates, with housing only on the west side of campus for medical school students. The first dorm complex went up near Halsted and Harrison Streets in 1988, and another building was added there in 1992.
The opening of Stukel Towers and the convocation center next spring mark the final phase in a $750 million renovation of the South Campus, situated in a new neighborhood, University Village. Although some storefronts remain vacant, there are several restaurants and coffee shops, a gym, bookstore, upscale boutique and bank.
Victoria Allen, a UIC senior, has had a view of the transformation from her apartment in Thomas Beckham Hall, one of two apartment-style residence halls built on South Campus several years ago. She moved to campus housing after commuting for two years.
"It's easier for me to live here and be involved," Allen said. "I can roll out of bed 15 minutes before class and make it on time."
The neighborhood's changes have been remarkable, she said. "My mother went here, and she remembers when Maxwell Street was still Maxwell Street. You could buy socks and listen to blues," she said. "It's completely changed."
The collegiate atmosphere has surprised some first-time visitors, including mom Donna Trimble, who lives in Mackinaw -- population 1,500 -- near Peoria.
"Before I came here, I thought I would hate it," Trimble said after saying goodbye to her son Ben, a freshman. "Then I came and said, 'Hey. This is much nicer than I thought. There's a whole college community here.'"
Brett Thurmon, UIC student government president, said recent meetings have focused on the growing need for late-night food options and other services.
"Even though we are talking so much about serving the residential students, nobody has stopped the commuter stuff we have on campus, like making sure the bus lines and 'L' and inter-campus shuttle are well-connected," he said.
Even now, most students still commute. Only about 3,800 of the 24,000 students will be in campus housing this fall, most of them undergraduates. Thousands more live within a mile of campus, Martin said.
Admissions Director Thomas Glenn said he thinks new housing has contributed to a rise in undergraduate applications. The academic profile of the freshman class also is up: The mean ACT score is 24.5, compared with 22.5 a decade earlier but still below the Urbana-Champaign campus' average of 28.7.
Top feeder schools this year include top-notch Whitney Young High School on the Near West Side and Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.
UIC tuition is still among the lowest in the state, with incoming students this fall paying about $4,200 a semester.
But students who choose to live in campus housing double their costs. A double room in the new Stukel Towers, including a meal plan, costs $8,400 for the academic year. Rooms are slightly less expensive in other dorms.
The cost doesn't seem to be keeping people away. There are 300 students on a waiting list for dorms or university apartments, Martin said.
"Some people say this is a 9-to-5 campus," he said. "Having this many students living here will change the character of the place."
Does anyone know if more dorms are planned or are we done? I'd love to see many more people living on campus. In the past decade (since 97), UIC has doubled the percentage of freshmen living on campus.
Link
At UIC, walk to dorm replacing drive home
With the opening of UIC's newest dorm, half of the college's freshmen now live on campus -- a departure for what has historically been considered a commuter school
By Jodi S. Cohen | Tribune higher education reporter
August 27, 2007
When she championed construction of more dormitories at the University of Illinois at Chicago about eight years ago, Sylvia Manning was "chewed out," the chancellor recalls, by a now-retired state senator who accused her of betraying the campus' urban-commuter mission.
She did it anyway. Stukel Towers, the university's third new dorm in six years, opened last week, welcoming 750 students -- and their overflowing carloads of clothing, lamps, bulletin boards, posters and pictures. If it weren't for the Dan Ryan Expressway noise and the Sears Tower views, the scene of awkward introductions among roommates and tearful goodbyes with parents would have fit right in at the university's bucolic Urbana-Champaign campus.
When the new school year begins Monday, a record 50 percent of UIC freshmen will live in university housing, up from 24 percent a decade ago. Intended as an affordable commuter school when the campus moved to its current, crowded location near Greektown in the 1960s -- known then as the Circle campus -- UIC now is a more frequent choice for students who want the benefits of city living but the independence of a residential college experience.
"This last 750 students may be the tipping point," Manning said. "The focus has been on creating a better community, a stronger community for students at UIC. Part of that has been the need to get a critical mass of students living on campus or within a mile of campus."
The transformation to more of a 24-hour campus is cheered by those who expect learning to be enhanced by so many students staying around after classes. Others wonder whether the change could call attention to socioeconomic differences among students who can afford a dorm room and those who live with their parents.
"I guess it could turn into more of a typical university," said Rob Soltys, a senior who lives with his mother near Midway Airport. "I think we're going to see more of the Abercrombie & Fitch, Polo-wearing suburbanites. It's an OK thing. Our campus is so diverse that nobody is going to notice that kind of thing happening."
Students and faculty said they hope the additional housing could lead to more student organizations, activities and school spirit on a campus known to shut down by 4 p.m. as commuters try to beat traffic home. A new fitness and recreation center, commercial space along Halsted and Maxwell Streets, and a planned 3,000-seat convocation center also are creating a more residential feel.
"They're making it more suburban," Melissa Niemann, 18, of Homer Glen said as she looked out Stukel Towers' 13th-floor windows to views of nearby Linens & Things, Dominick's and a DSW shoe store.
"Twenty years ago, it wouldn't have even been safe to live here," said her roommate, Crystal Rueck, 18, of Lockport.
Bob Mirabal, who was helping his daughter Natalie move into the dorm, was in awe. As an engineering student in the early 1980s, he lived with his parents in Oak Lawn and drove to UIC for classes. That's what all the undergraduates did.
"You went to classes, and you went home. Maybe you went to the library," Mirabal said. "You didn't have any of this campus life. There was no student camaraderie."
That wasn't the case as he moved his daughter into a four-person suite with a semiprivate bathroom. Signs in the hallways promoted board game get-togethers on Wednesdays and "mocktails and movies" on Fridays.
The $124 million dorm boasts lofted study lounges, meeting rooms, shared kitchens, a coffee shop and a 150-seat auditorium for student performances. Residents also get an all-you-can-eat meal plan in the cafeteria, open from 7 a.m. to midnight, and free laundry service -- the selling point for students' mothers, said Tony Martin, director of housing.
Natalie Mirabal said she likely wouldn't have enrolled at UIC if it still were the commuter campus her father attended.
"That would have changed my mind," said Mirabal, who also considered Illinois State University and Northern Illinois University.
Until 1988, UIC was strictly a commuter school for undergraduates, with housing only on the west side of campus for medical school students. The first dorm complex went up near Halsted and Harrison Streets in 1988, and another building was added there in 1992.
The opening of Stukel Towers and the convocation center next spring mark the final phase in a $750 million renovation of the South Campus, situated in a new neighborhood, University Village. Although some storefronts remain vacant, there are several restaurants and coffee shops, a gym, bookstore, upscale boutique and bank.
Victoria Allen, a UIC senior, has had a view of the transformation from her apartment in Thomas Beckham Hall, one of two apartment-style residence halls built on South Campus several years ago. She moved to campus housing after commuting for two years.
"It's easier for me to live here and be involved," Allen said. "I can roll out of bed 15 minutes before class and make it on time."
The neighborhood's changes have been remarkable, she said. "My mother went here, and she remembers when Maxwell Street was still Maxwell Street. You could buy socks and listen to blues," she said. "It's completely changed."
The collegiate atmosphere has surprised some first-time visitors, including mom Donna Trimble, who lives in Mackinaw -- population 1,500 -- near Peoria.
"Before I came here, I thought I would hate it," Trimble said after saying goodbye to her son Ben, a freshman. "Then I came and said, 'Hey. This is much nicer than I thought. There's a whole college community here.'"
Brett Thurmon, UIC student government president, said recent meetings have focused on the growing need for late-night food options and other services.
"Even though we are talking so much about serving the residential students, nobody has stopped the commuter stuff we have on campus, like making sure the bus lines and 'L' and inter-campus shuttle are well-connected," he said.
Even now, most students still commute. Only about 3,800 of the 24,000 students will be in campus housing this fall, most of them undergraduates. Thousands more live within a mile of campus, Martin said.
Admissions Director Thomas Glenn said he thinks new housing has contributed to a rise in undergraduate applications. The academic profile of the freshman class also is up: The mean ACT score is 24.5, compared with 22.5 a decade earlier but still below the Urbana-Champaign campus' average of 28.7.
Top feeder schools this year include top-notch Whitney Young High School on the Near West Side and Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.
UIC tuition is still among the lowest in the state, with incoming students this fall paying about $4,200 a semester.
But students who choose to live in campus housing double their costs. A double room in the new Stukel Towers, including a meal plan, costs $8,400 for the academic year. Rooms are slightly less expensive in other dorms.
The cost doesn't seem to be keeping people away. There are 300 students on a waiting list for dorms or university apartments, Martin said.
"Some people say this is a 9-to-5 campus," he said. "Having this many students living here will change the character of the place."
