Whitney Village is a university-owned complex for seniors created in 2005 as an alternative living place for seniors due to the surplus of seniors enrolled at the school. It’s located on the side of Whitney Avenue by Ray and Mike’s, and contains eight apartment buildings and decent-sized courtyard.
Let it be known I do not know anyone here who is happy to live in this complex. Most of the seniors are here based on the lottery because of lack of senior housing on York Hill. My suitemate had a number in the low 80s, and still failed to land York Hill housing. So even with your high number, you still have a very slim chance of landing at Eastview.
As a resident of Whitney Village with no vehicle to call my own, it is the most stressful complex to live in. There is only one shuttle that comes around inconsistently and ends its routes very early. If you want a late shuttle to Whitney Village, you need to go on a Westwoods shuttle and ask to be taken to the Village, which wastes the time of anybody going to Westwoods for their car (which is another opinion piece in itself). One weekend last semester, I waited two hours for a shuttle to main campus, and some others I waited an hour.
While Quinnipiac likes to boast about its Public Safety being the best in the country, there’s barely a trace of them at Whitney Village. Maybe twice a week if you’re lucky, you’ll see a Public Safety guard in the small booth directed right as you drive down the steep road entering the Village. How come there’s no guard there at all times? With the high crime rates in Hamden, the chances of a thief entering a village full of college kids who pay a high tuition to go here is high.
One of the most puzzling issues with Whitney Village is that you receive no meal plan. Whitney Village is a Quinnipiac-owned complex, as is York Hill and Mount Carmel. It’s very expensive to live here too, and we’re not even given a single cent to use at the cafeterias on those two campuses. The worst part is our school president doesn’t even have an idea why that’s the case, or better yet what’s going on here. In an interview with Q30 News last year, President John Lahey was shocked the students didn’t have a meal plan and said to direct that question to others in charge. Instead of saying to direct these questions to others, Lahey should be more interactive with the students and show he cares.
Speaking of safest schools, this complex is far from safe in any blizzard situation. During the supposed “legendary” blizzard we were allegedly going to have last week, the sidewalks were too icy for boots. I slipped three times walking up to Whitney Avenue. Quinnipiac sent out an email saying all three campuses were in “excellent condition,” but the roads of Whitney Village were covered in sludge and ice. How come you can talk about those campuses, but not the one some of your own seniors live on?
If Quinnipiac truly cared about its students, they would attempt to look into Whitney Village and make changes. Believe me, this isn’t the first time students showed their disapproval here. When the residence complex was first used in 2005, students complained about how the courtyard is ineffective. This caused most of the residents to move to other off-campus apartments, but these wouldn’t be owned by the school.
From the perspective of a Whitney Village resident, you’re not valuable enough to the school as a senior about to graduate. You get a feeling that they cater to the ones that still have semesters to pay more tuition. While the school claims they have a diverse community, Whitney Village is diverse from other campus residencies in the wrong ways.
