Many new changes are coming to the residence halls in the fall of 2024. New options for living are being provided in McWelsh, Steele, and Wolves Memorial Suites.
According to Marty Sabolo, Director of Residence Life and Dining Services, “McWelsh Hall is probably the biggest change.” All of the rooms in McWelsh will be turned to singles, and the residence hall will be pet friendly.
Sabolo states that each room will have loft units and just one single bed. Only the first and second floor will be in use, and 18 of the rooms will be air conditioned with window units.
Since McWelsh Residence Hall will be pet friendly, Sabolo states, “Any student who is living over there will have to sign a special contract and pay an additional $75 deposit, but they will be able to bring a family pet from home.”
Sabolo explains that only cats and dogs will be allowed at this time, and each pet needs to have lived with the family for at least 6 months to be sure they are well trained.
Steele Hall will be turned into an upperclassman hall. Only students 21 years or older will be allowed to live in Steele.
According to Sabolo, “Any student who is 21 or older will be able to sign a special contract, provided everyone in their suite is 21 years or older, and they will be able to have alcohol in their suite.”
Although there will be some restrictions on what alcohol is permitted, students living there will also be able to have guests that are over 21 that can drink in their room.
The last big change in residence life that is coming in the fall of 2024 is located on the third floor of Wolves Memorial Suites. According to Sabolo, the conference room and one of the semi-suits on the third floor will be converted into gaming rooms. The rooms will be made into a PC, Xbox, and PlayStation gaming room.
Sabolo states, “We are ordering some new furniture for those gaming rooms, and we will be doing some painting and the lighting in some of those rooms. And then we have hired a staff member who will do special programming over there, aimed at gaming.”
Although that is all that will be changed by the fall of 2024, Sabolo claims that there are more changes to come. “The final thing we are still in the process of finalizing, but in Great Plains West we will be starting to build a nursing community over there. In the fall of 2025 when the nursing program actually starts, one wing of one of the floors will be for nursing students.”
A lot of effort has been put into these residence life changes. Sabolo states, “Dr. Schnoor has been a leader in this, pushing me to look at this and see what we can do.”
Two years ago, students took a Benchmarking Survey, similar to the one that students took this year, and the changes in residence life are largely based on the results of that survey from two years ago.
According to Sabolo, “One of the results we got from it two years ago was just some feedback from some of the students that they wanted to see more options, more variety of things. So, we started looking at what our students, especially some of our upperclassman students and what they want, to keep them living on campus.”
For the most part, the new options have been received well by the students. Many students have shown interest in both McWelsh Hall and the gaming community in Wolves Memorial Suites.
However, not the same interest has been shown in the now alcohol-permitting Steele Hall. Nonetheless, Sabolo is still optimistic, stating, “We will continue to offer it and see what we can get. It may just take a year or two for people to get excited about it.”
The hope for these changes is to keep more students on campus and increase enrollment, and, most importantly, increase student satisfaction. Sabolo says, “We don’t want these to just be a place where students sleep. We want the residence halls to be a place where students grow, learn, and develop. The more offerings we can give them, the better.”
Northern’s Residence Life is always working to create the best possible environment for the students, and Sabolo offers, “If any students living on or off campus have not made their arrangements for next fall, we still have spaces. We will gladly take anybody and we will work with them on it.”
EmilyJo Wollschlager, Assistant Editor
The Exponent 