 "Photo: Jonathan Resendez")
The results are in: Wesleyan student housing is in need of a facelift.
In early March, the university hired a team of consultants to find a way to increase revenue from student housing with a focus on Wesleyan Village.
“We felt like we needed an extra set of eyes from outside to come in and look at our whole housing module,” said Pati Alexander, vice president for enrollment and student services, “and give us recommendations on how to improve it.”
John White and Bambi Harris, with 30 years of experience in university housing and real estate each, used focus groups to see what students like and dislike about living on campus.
“We offered suggestions for the improvement or addition of services including housing policy, student development programming, facility, landscaping and maintenance and food service,” Harris said.
The report suggested revising the meal plan to have more cash value spread throughout campus. Working out a deal with Aramark to provide food over the breaks was also a suggestion.
“I would feel much better about that,” said Jacob Lyons, freshman business management major. “More choices would be better, so we don’t have to spend all our time at one place.”
The consultants agreed with the focus group results that students find the Elizabeth and Stella Hall lobbies unappealing.
“We already knew this, but it was good for the board to hear it,” Alexander said. “The students said, ‘Nobody wants to hang out in the lobbies because it’s kind of drab and ugly and boring.’”
Certain changes stemming from the report have already begun such as changing vending contractors because several vending machines in the dorms hadn’t worked properly.
Another change is the hiring of John White as interim housing director until April 30.
White put his vision for change into effect immediately.
“In our experiences, marketing is more than just sending out brochures and telling people to live on campus,” White said. “It’s how you treat your customers. It’s the little things you do while you live on campus and what students tell other students.”
White said he and Harris noticed very active students desiring the “college experience” who didn’t feel like they were getting it at Wesleyan.
“They want a place they can hang out in—that they can have fun with,” he said.
Most students can’t or don’t want to hang out until later at night after most of the services offered by Wesleyan are closed, White said.
The consultants noticed several vacant areas in Stella that could serve as group study or music practice rooms.
“[We want to ] find out what the students want to use the room for and do something with it,” White said.
Students were also concerned with the cleanliness and maintenance of the facilities, the report showed.
“My opinion is that they’re not very clean at all,” said Cara Lumpkin, freshman biology major. “The poor janitors have to do what they can.”
Lumpkin said the dorms were old and that the dirtiest parts of them were the community bathrooms.
White rewrote job descriptions and moved responsibilities around to create a more efficient system for keeping tabs on maintenance.
There are plans in the works for maintenance to keep track of work orders.
White said when he first asked how to find out if a work order had been completed, the answer was “when the student stops complaining.
“That’s not how it’s supposed to be,” he said.
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