Every winter break many international students have had to find temporary housing because a flight home was too expensive and the residence halls were closed for the holidays. This year, several dorms will remain open during the break.Carter, Samuelson, Foster, Waits, Tom Brown-Pete Wright and Moncrief halls will give students the option to stay in their dorms during the break, which will be from Dec. 15 to Jan. 14, said Craig Allen, director of Residential Services.
“By opening the dorms, it not only gives (international students) a place to stay but it also means they don’t have to spend that $2,500 that they don’t have,” said John Singleton, director of international student services. “So for those kids I think it’s a very nice gesture on TCU’s part.”
About 95 percent of an estimated 520 international TCU students are on a degree-seeking program, which means they study here for several years and for those who live overseas it can cost thousands of dollars to travel home, Singleton said.
“Students are now required to live on campus for their first two years, but international students – who could not afford to fly home – were being told they couldn’t stay on campus for those three weeks,” Singleton said. “This wouldn’t be an issue if they were allowed to live in an apartment, so I think this was TCU finally making right on that situation.”
Previously, if an international student could not find a place to stay, the International Student Services office would find a family in the community for the student to stay with during the winter break, Singleton said.
“For some students, staying on campus is probably less about needing a place to stay and more about not wanting to go back home for that amount of time, away from their friends and the place where they spend most of their time,” Allen said.
Other students who will benefit from the new open dorm policy will be those who live out of town and have a job or internship in the area or if a student’s family is out of town on vacation they can stay at the dorms so they do not have to stay alone, Allen said.
“Moncrief Hall was the only exception to the closed dorm policy during the winter break, because it mostly housed athletes who needed to be on campus regularly for things like practice and games,” Allen said.
If a student lives in one of the closed halls and wants to stay on campus during the break they will have the option of staying in a friend’s room in one of the open halls, but it has to be approved by the resident assistant, Allen said.
It’s pretty laid back. We are just offering this service as a convenience to students and we don’t anticipate any major things,” said David Cooper, associate director of Residence Life, “but the RAs will still make sure if any students are misbehaving we confront it and we would do our normal procedures.”
Students can contact campus police from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the winter break with any problems and after 5 p.m. the RAs will be on duty and available to help students out with any issues, Cooper said.
