Students looking to live off campus next year need pick up the pace because the Nov. 1 deadline for off-campus housing applications is fast approaching.
Anyone who is hoping to live off campus needs to go through Zak Kroger, the Residential Life and Activities Program Coordinator, and Kathy Butler, the Room Assignments Specialist, who have been holding workshops on off-campus housing since second block.
“[The workshops] just give general information and expectations, because so many students just don’t know where to begin,” said Kroger. “Some [students] are great, but we’re just trying to cover everybody.
Requirements for off-campus living are simple. A student needs to have junior status, or to have lived on campus for six semesters, in order to be eligible. There are also exceptions for special cases, such as married couples or students over the age of 25.
If a student is eligible, they can attend the mandatory workshops. Zak will scan your gold card to record your participation, and then forward the list of attendees to Kathy Butler, who sends out applications. After that, it is up to students to figure out where they are living.
“This is one thing I’ve been trying to communicate a lot because I will get emails from people that say, ‘Hey I haven’t been able to find anything on the [Colorado College] website for off-campus housing,” said Kroger. “That’s because it’s not a CC-run thing.”
Students need to use other methods of finding their own homes, such as apartments.com or similar sites. Often the best method is to just get the contact info of the landlord directly from the people currently living in an off-campus residence.
Kroger is accumulating recommendations and warnings from students living off-campus at the moment to give to the current juniors.
One issue with the housing process is that many seniors are choosing to stay in the apartments rather than move off-campus.
Colorado College is planning on building new senior apartments in the parking lot to the East of Mathias, across from Barnes. By adding a new apartment complex, the college is hoping to fix the traffic jam currently causing housing problems.
“Because so many seniors are electing to stay on campus and live in the apartments, [they displace] the juniors into Bemis, and the sophomores into freshman halls which have no space,” said Kroger.
Another issue that Kroger foresees is students seeing the process of applying to live off-campus as too tedious or unmanageable, and choosing to live off-campus without notifying the housing department.
While this can be done, unless you want to be charged for on-campus housing, it is hardly advisable.
“Until I get your card swiped and uploaded to Kathy’s system, you’re going to be charged by default for housing,” said Kroger. “It’s just going to happen.”
Though the deadline is fast approaching, students need not worry too much.
“I joke that if CC had a third school color it would be grey… because there’s very little that’s a hard yes or no,” said Kroger. “However I’m hoping to avoid that situation where there are people doing it last minute… because I know that the more people [that] don’t do it on time, the more work it creates for us.”
Ultimately, it is a great amount of work, and one person does almost all of it: Kathy Butler. As much as students love to complain about the housing situation on campus, it is staggering that the 2100-odd students attending Colorado College are all organized by one person.
At just about every other university, there is an entire department designed to facilitate student housing. At CC, there is only Kathy, and she does a great job despite the amount of criticism she receives.
“[Kathy] does a really good job… and then still has time to have students come and just scream at her because she’s ‘ruining their senior year,” said Kroger. “Like, what are you talking about, she helps people so much.”