Amid a housing shortage spurred on by an unexpected surge in first-year enrollment, more than three dozen of Quinnipiac University’s first-year students are living in converted common areas.
The university repurposed lounge areas in the Commons, Ledges, Dana and Irma residence halls to house students for whom dorms were not immediately available.
The former study spaces, furnished with bunk beds, dressers and desks, can accommodate as many as eight students in certain dorm halls, including Commons. The university also converted lounges into quad-style living spaces in dorm buildings like Irma, which typically only accommodate doubles.
As of Tuesday, John Morgan, associate vice president for public relations, said in a statement to the Chronicle that 41 first-year students were still assigned to live in atypical dorm spaces. This is already a decline from the figures initially reported Sunday by Q30, and Morgan noted that university officials expect this number to continue to decrease in the coming days.
Accordingly, some students with nontraditional housing assignments received an email last week from the university’s Office of Housing that read, in part:
“At this time, you remain assigned in overflow housing. Please be aware that overflow housing assignments are fluid and your assignment may change as we are able to consolidate spaces. Prior to leaving home on your move in day, please be sure to check MyHousing for any updates to your housing assignment.”
Further details on this apparent space consolidation — including which spaces are being consolidated and why university officials were unable to complete this process prior to first-year move-in — remain unclear.
Morgan attributed the unusual housing situation to a “highly successful admissions cycle” in the wake of several high-profile events involving Quinnipiac, including the men’s hockey team’s NCAA national championship win in April.
“We’re pleased to be able to keep our students on campus and in residence halls, where they will have a myriad of opportunities to take part in a wide range of immersive activities to help them get acclimated to living on campus,” Morgan wrote.
Quinnipiac is constructing a new 417-bed residence hall on the Mount Carmel Campus as part of its $293 million South Quad project to increase its on-campus housing capacity, but this dorm building is not slated to open for several years.
It is still unknown how many applicants Quinnipiac admitted to the class of 2027 and how many of those admitted students enrolled for the fall semester, though the university is expected to release these figures in the coming weeks.
