As the end of the fall semester approaches, some students are filing for housing relocation for the spring semester.

Some students are filing individual requests to be moved somewhere on campus or into their own room in other dorms. Seventy-seven students have asked individually to be moved from their current locations, said Sara Miller, associate director of Syracuse University News Services, in an email.

Kyunglee Park, a freshman psychology major living at the Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center, said she does not think she has a good chance of receiving the room change request. Park filed for an individual request to change rooms, which continues to see the most volume this semester.

Students can also file group requests so they can continue living with their roommates but in a different place on campus. Fifty-two groups have requested the Office of Residence Life to place them with their group at a different location on campus.

In addition to group requests, there have been a number of pull-in requests by students. A pull-in request is when a student without a roommate asks another student to join them as a roommate for the next semester, Miller said. Fifty-four of those requests have been tallied, bringing the total number of requests for next semester to 183.

The process of requesting a room change starts with the resident adviser, said Terra Peckskamp, director of the Office of Residence Life, in an email. The ORL staff will work with the student to address their needs, she said. Students can put themselves on the waitlist through the Office of Housing, Meal Plan and I.D. Card Services to request a room change.

Students want to switch rooms for a number of reasons, Peckskamp said. They might want to live in a different hall or just room with a different person. Another reason would be that the student would just want to be closer to friends they have on other parts of campus, Peckskamp said.

Miller said students will be informed of the status of the request during the semester break. After the first announcement and the first group of students move into their new housing locations, a second round of students will be informed. This will take place during the first week of classes, Miller said.

Going abroad is also a key factor in the housing relocation requests. Rooms that have students who are going abroad can potentially free up space for students looking to relocate. It is still too early to tell the exact number because it could include those students who are getting pulled in and moving around to different halls, Miller said. The chance that whole rooms are going to open up is small, she said.

The ORL tries to deal with each student individually to help them ‘problem solve the situation, whatever their challenge might be,’ Peckskamp said.

This problem solving generally means working on communication skills and conflict resolution skills, she said.

Said Peckskamp: ‘The student needs to work with the office to develop a plan for what he or she will do to help improve the situation.’

nrcardon@syr.edu