As the home stretch of the fall semester begins, Duke is making plans for spring housing assignments.
As announced in early October, all students currently living on campus will be able to keep their current housing assignment in the spring. Off-campus students will also be able to apply for housing next semester, with juniors and seniors receiving priority.
Joe Gonzalez, assistant vice president for student affairs and dean for residential life, said that incoming juniors and seniors have first preference for filling campus vacancies, then incoming freshmen followed by sophomores as space allows.
The deadline for students to apply for on campus housing was Friday, Oct. 30. As of Oct. 27, HRL had received 700 housing applications, Gonzalez said.
Although some of these students’ plans could change, HRL anticipates accommodating all housing requests from incoming juniors and seniors. They also expect to accommodate all requests from incoming first-years in the designated first-year communities on campus.
“What the final number of housing applications ends up being will determine whether we can accommodate all the requests from incoming sophomores,” Gonzalez said.
While this increase of students in campus housing will increase campus density, Gonzalez emphasized that all COVID-19 housing regulations in place this semester will continue in January, such as the number of students allowed in each bathroom. All students on campus will continue living in single rooms.
He noted that spring housing plans are contingent upon how the pandemic progresses in the state and the country.
Students already living on campus have also been given the option to request a housing reassignment. Gonzalez said this reassignment process will allow students in partially filled apartments or suites to have friends move in with them. This will help reach full capacity in
apartments and suites through self-requests. Students who might have lost their housing block over the summer will also be able to move in with more friends on campus.
“Basically, we wanted to create opportunities for students to move to a situation that they prefer for the remainder of the academic year,” Gonzalez said.
In an email update sent to students Oct. 28, HRL announced that the maximum number of students who could move from West to East campus had been reached.
Gonzalez said that one of the reasons that campus will be able to accommodate the additional students is that there are many empty rooms scattered throughout the buildings. The reassignment process will allow these empty rooms to be filled by students who already know each other. However, Gonzalez said that students living in high demand suite-style housing (such as the Hollows) may be assigned a random suitemate.
“We dont grant every request, but we try to work with students as much as we are able,” Gonzalez said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.