RHO students decide whether to stay or go

BY AMY BEEMAN
STAFF WRITER 

After two years of housing students, USF St. Petersburg’s Residence Hall One again seeks to fill its 348 rooms. While new students and their parents are getting tours of the building, some students who have called the residence hall home are leaving.

Of the 130 first-year students who moved into the hall in fall 2008, about 80 are returning, Kent Kelso, regional vice chancellor of academic affairs, said.

“We’re still a little over 100 [students] short of where we need to be to be full,” Kelso said.

He said the majority of people who move into residence halls are first-year and transfer students, so the reason it is hard to fill Residence Hall One is because the campus has very few first-year students compared to other four-year universities. Last year, Kelso said, there were between 230 and 240 first-year students at USF St. Petersburg.

“Even if every single freshman chose to live in the residence hall, it still wouldn’t be full,” he said. “As we grow our freshman class, you will see the residence hall not only fill, but we’ll start getting pressure to get another one.”

Kelso said studies show moving into a residence hall upon entering college fosters a sense of community. Students who live on campus are more likely to be active in student-organized clubs, student government and school-sponsored events. According to one study, the increased student involvement with a school increases the timeliness and rate of graduation. Therefore, the on-campus students are reported to have a more enriching college experience than commuters.

Kelso said reasons for living in Residence Hall One include the location to campus, downtown and the waterfront. Its monthly cost of approximately $700 covers all utilities and Internet access.

Some students who are moving out of the residence hall agree they were able to make some friends while living there, but also said they are ready to move out.

“Student Affairs paints this picture [of living in the residence hall] and it is completely not true,” Josh Cantrell, a 19-year-old psychology major, said.

Cantrell lived in the hall for a year and a half and was a residence assistant, or an R.A. He said he made a couple of good friends while living at the hall, but has had enough of living there because of some students’ behaviors and how they have been handled by USF St. Petersburg police and administration.

“They don’t prioritize, that’s the thing,” Cantrell said. “Certain police officers will actually let certain things go by the wayside and walk away.”

He said he has seen domestic violence, theft, drug use and plenty of drunkenness among students over and under the age of 21. Cantrell said USF St. Petersburg does not conduct background checks of students who move in, and so they only found out about one resident’s history of sexual assault after he assaulted two students and then set fire to their door at the residence hall. Cantrell said that student is now in jail.

“That should have been disclosed in his application to the university,” Brian Akins, coordinator of residence life, said about the arrested student’s previous record. Akins, who has been in his position since November 2006, said that the university requires school applicants to disclose any law violations and related information before they are admitted to the university as a student.

“If they are cleared through the university, they are cleared through us,” Akins said.

But these alleged problems are not students’ only concerns. Ashley Gregory, 24, a student and R.A. who lived in Residence Hall One for one semester, said there were other issues. The air conditioner in her room broke and was never fixed; food, a laptop and an Xbox were stolen while she lived in the hall. Gregory now lives with Cantrell off campus.

Cantrell and Gregory said they heard about an alleged rape and a stabbing that both took place in the residence hall. Also, Gregory was working at the front desk one night when someone “took a crap in the elevator,” she said.

USF police dispatcher Tia James said she had never heard about the allegations of a rape or a stabbing.

“If those things happened they either happened off campus or weren’t reported,” James said, adding that she did not know whether the other criminal activity happened without taking an in-depth look through records.

Cantrell and Gregory said because of Residence Hall One’s “paper-thin” walls and “disrespectful” people who are loud in the middle of the night, they decided it was time to move out.

Kim Mason, 20, will be moving out of the residence hall after this semester to move in with Cantrell and Gregory. Mason, a transfer student from USF Tampa, said she originally wanted to move into the residence hall to meet people and for the convenience.

“I didn’t know anybody,” Mason said. “Everything was paid for right off the bat, and you can walk to class.”

Mason is moving out because she said the cost of living in the residence hall is too expensive for what students get in return.