Students are slamming their doors at Marist Housing after many juniors and seniors are left with underclassmen housing and separation from friends.
“Before I went abroad I had requested to be placed back on campus. Marist did not inform me where my housing placement was until two days before I was planning on moving in,” said junior Maya James. “I was placed in sophomore housing as a junior. I ended up finding an off-campus house last minute and moved there for this semester.”
After studying abroad for a semester, Marist students have been left at the bottom of the list when coming back to Marist this spring semester. Not only were abroad students left with poor housing, but the situation has further resulted in perspective abroad students fearing this problem may happen to them as well.
“It was really frustrating to return from abroad to find out that Marist couldn’t put me with any of my friends and in sophomore housing. Marist encourages studying abroad so much and it felt like they were punishing me for going,” said junior Morgan Colwell. “As a junior I would’ve liked to live with at least one of my friends and not have a roommate. They were very disorganized and the problem could have easily been avoided.”
Not only is Marist not confronting the issue, they are leaving students to move off campus unless they want to settle for underclassmen housing. James now lives with graduate students and is considerably far from her friends that live on campus, while Colwell settles for sophomore housing.
According to Marist Housing, about 300 students went abroad in the fall, while only 100 went in the spring resulting in numerous individuals not having spots in upperclassman housing. Although some feel that being placed in an underclassman house is worse than no housing at all, another argument that is being made is “Do we really have bad housing at Marist?,” said sophomore and tour guide Skyler Caruso.
Marist does not guarantee housing after freshman and sophomore year, but they have been able to accommodate anyone who sought housing 100% over the past few years. Yet, based on the numerous abroad students looking for housing when coming back to Marist grounds, this embedded line in the Marist Tour Guide Script leaves major questions when coming back to Marist after being abroad.
Caruso stressed that there shouldn’t be much to fuss about due to the fact that the different housing options are so similar. “However, I do feel that being with your friends is important. I would be very upset if I was a junior and couldn’t live with my friends. Thankfully, I am not going abroad and won’t have to deal with this issue next semester,” said Caruso.
With a much larger percent of the Marist population going abroad in the fall, it has resulted in fewer spots in the upperclassman housing for the spring. Junior, Emily Sommer’s, continues to share her story after being rejected to live in two vacant spots in New Gartland due to inaccurate priority point counting from Marist Housing.
“My roommate and I were heart broken and distraught over our new room placement, we weren’t even put in the same room and in an area that was nowhere close to anyone we knew. We were separated and isolated from all of our friends. This was incredibly difficult for us to swallow and still is difficult for us to deal with. It has caused us both to have major anxiety and depression behavioral attitudes already on top of what we had to deal with and feel when coming back and adjusting from living in another country for four months,” said Sommers.
Although many recent abroad individuals are outraged, Marist is doing their best to prevent this issue from recurring. Although individuals will always find a negative with housing, reassuring spots for incoming abroad students will decrease the stress for housing and the students coming back to Marist the following semester.
The Red Fox Report 