New Priority System

The Residential Life Community strives to provide a moderate, yet fulfilling experience for its students. A number of staff help support and meet the needs of not only current students but also the needs of new students who will be entering into the Fall 2005 semester. Because new students are recruited every year, it is necessary to make changes and accommodations. Many goals have been formulated to serve as a conceptual foundation to guide Residence Life professionals in the development of programs for first-year students on our University Campus.
“We want to do more this year”, says David Oestreicher, Director of Residential Life. “We want to be more student-service oriented by introducing interval components to the recruitment orientation for new students. We feel the need to better communicate with them before they come out to campus and also to get in touch with their parents before we invite them to campus.”
He continues, “We usually send them out a letter letting them know what their assignments are, roommates, and things that they need to bring. Basically, we want to help them make more of a smooth transition.”
For current students, according to Oestreicher, a new priority system will be implemented for students who have a GPA of 3.2 or higher, whereas initially, the priority was given to students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. “We lowered this so that more people would get priority.” Also, the University’s initially proposed Honors Program will no longer be classroom based. It has been completely eliminated and there will not be an Honors Program.
Other residential issues have been questioned such as changes in male and female housing. The revised memoranda states that Barnum’s fourth floor will remain the same as it is now with the east wing housing male residents and the west wing housing female residents. This information is accurate and has been confirmed by David Oestreicher.
A list of the new goals and other improvements are available in the Residential Life office, in the Basement level of Wahlstrom Library.