A touch of home

While most of SF State's student body was still at work or on vacation, students living in the on-campus Residence Community had a head start on the university experience when they moved in Sunday.

Patient but encumbered with boxes and luggage, more than 1300 students began to line up at 10 a.m. to move into a Residence Apartment or one of two Residence Halls: Mary Ward Hall and Mary Park Hall.

Students like Dorothy Martin, a international business graduate student from Paris, filed past a series of check-in tables, where they first had to fill out an emergency card. There, they received room assignments, a "Good Stuff" welcome pack, and were finally given keys on the way to bulging elevators.

A free continental brunch was offered from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., but Dorothy and her group from France arrived just as the lunch line closed.

"I can't believe they won't let us in," Dorothy said. "We will find a way to get in. People from France never respect lines."

With lines beginning where other lines ended, nobody noticed or even cared when a sly French student cut in, feigning misunderstanding. Those already in line stepped aside without notice.

"I'm not in a hurry," said Charlie Orman, a parent leaning on the roof of a blue Volvo stationwagon in Lot 19, adding that he had met some parents earlier that were helping two of their children move in on the same day.

According to Philippe Cumia, Coordinator of Business Services, approximately 60 percent of the Residence Community is comprised of California students from outside of the Bay Area, while 20 percent of on-campus residents are from outside of the State, and about 16 percent are international students.

Not all students are guaranteed a room, as it is "first come, first serve," Cumia said.
"The computer determines who will live where according to the data collected on the Roommate Preference form sent to all the students who apply to live on-campus," he said. "Each year we expect to have about 50 people who do not show up, so we over book by about that many. This year the waiting list is 38 people."

Students on the waiting list from outside of the Bay Area were asked to arrive on Monday and are temporarily lodging in the Guest Center, Cumia said. "Students from close-by were asked to remain at home.... We expect to fill all of the spots for all those on the waiting list by the end of the month."

Students who choose to live on campus -- for convenience, for a sense of security or for the opportunity to meet possible future off-campus roommates -- must enter a 10-month contract with Housing and Residential Services.

The 15-story Residence Apartments, reserved for upperclassmen and students who are at least 21, have either one or two bedrooms (for two or four students), a bathroom and a kitchen, and cost $385/month.

The six-story Residence Halls rooms -- forty per floor -- each accommodate only two students and have no cooking facilities. Instead, rent includes 10 meals/week at the dining center, City Eats, for $485/month or 15 meals/week for $510/month. There are two community bathrooms on each floor -- one for each sex.

Each building has laundry facilities and coed floors, but the apartments and the rooms in the halls are all same-sex.

Security is maintained by the Hall Assistants (HAs), paid students who work in four-hour shifts and sit at the front desk on the first floor of each building 24 hours/day in order to observe the comings and goings.

To enter after 8 p.m., Residents must show plastic photo identification cards issued on the first and second days of the move-in. Guests must be accompanied by a resident and signed-in after hours. Each card also has a bar code that allows residents to open the front doors of the halls and the basement door of the apartments.

The atmosphere in the halls and in the apartments is very different. In the halls, the noise carries and people tend to know their neighbors better.

While returning residents acknowledge that this is the norm achieved after a few weeks into the semester, the Housing and Residence Staff organizes Gator Greeting Week each year in order to help students become acclimatized to the on-campus community lifestyle and San Francisco itself.

Events such as the question-and-answer session and free meals on move-in day, socials, concerts, movie marathons, improv shows, and guided tours of the City are among the activities planned this week for on-campus residents.

One can even discuss sex anonymously in complete darkness in at "Sex in the Dark."
Activity never ceases here.
Never.

[ back to Golden Gater Online August 31, 1995 ]

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