When Tejal Sanghvi leaves campus at 9:30 p.m., she either finds a ride home from a friend or is forced to wait an hour and fifteen minutes to get home. Sanghvi lives three miles from school off of Whitney Avenue, and when she gets a lift from friends it takes her less than ten minutes to get there. But she and the other 54 international students living off campus are not always so fortunate to have a friend that can drive them home.
These students’ only option in instances such as this are to use public transportation. The buses detour, making the students wait over an hour for what should be a ten-minute ride. Sanghvi has been dropped off home as late as 10:45 from her 9:30 class.
The Quinnipiac Dattco shuttle actually passes Sanghvi’s apartment complex, but does not stop. This prompted some of the international students to request shuttles, but the idea seems out of the question.
“Since inception, the reason for shuttles has always been to provide a service for undergraduate students,” said Kerstin Soderlund, director of the Carl Hansen Student Center.
Soderlund is involved solely in the routing of the shuttles for the undergraduate students. As she pointed out, “graduate students fall out of this category.”
She said the dilemma is one of preferential treatment. If the shuttles began stopping for the international students living off-campus, the shuttles would also have to stop at all other off-campus residences. With all seniors living off campus in over 100 different locations, the task would not be feasible.
Senior history major Justin Mello thought giving the international students rides to and from their off-campus residences would be unfair.
“I have to pay for gas and car insurance. You can’t show preferences toward one part of the student body and ignore the rest,” said Mello.
Soderlund described the Quinnipiac shuttles as quite extensive compared to other schools, despite student complaints.

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