Rhode Island College long has been known as a commuter college; after all, most of its 10,000 students are Rhode Islanders who drive to class from homes off-campus.
But a brand-new residence hall soon will help the school take a step away from that reputation.
RIC is set to open a new five-story dormitory in time for the start of the school year this week – a building of apartment and suite-style living quarters that will house 367 students and will boost the college’s on-campus population by 44 percent.
“It is quite a change,” said spokeswoman Jane Fusco, referring to the influx of students who will call RIC home during the school year. “More and more students are opting to live on campus.”
The new dorm is just the latest example of a trend in which college and universities are attempting to woo students by offering more than just a good education. In deciding where to go to school, students – and their parents – are also weighing other parts of the collegiate experience.
Since October 2006, the University of Rhode Island has opened three new residence halls at the cost of $70 million. And last month, the university opened Hope Commons, a $23 million dining facility that includes a coffee house, pizza parlor, mini-market and state-of-the-art dining hall.
The 47,000-square-foot building also features a gas fireplace and four wide-screen plasma TVs.
“This is part of the wow factor,” said Kathleen Gianquitti, URI’s director of dining and retail food services. “Where you live, where you eat is part of the consideration of where the students will go to school.”
URI and RIC are not the only schools investing in new student housing. Rhode Island School of Design students are starting to move into the Moshassuck Square Apartments at Charles and North Main streets in Providence, for which the school signed a master lease. (Because existing tenants are not being displaced, only half of the units were expected to be available at the start of school this month, with the rest opening by August 2008.)
And two years ago, RISD increased its student housing capacity by 65 percent in a single jump with the opening of “15 West,” a residence hall for 500 students carved out of the upper floors of the former Rhode Island Hospital Trust Bank building at 15 Westminster St.
Rhode Island College had five dorms for 828 students before this new building. At 125,000 square feet, the new $30 million residence hall is the largest of the 43 buildings on campus.
Designed by Robinson Green Beretta of Providence and built by Bacon Construction in 15 months, the building was funded through a bond issue approved by voters in 2004.
RIC officials said four students will live in each suite or apartment, with single or double bedrooms surrounding a common living area. Suites include a kitchenette with microwave ovens and under-the-counter refrigerators. Apartments contain a breakfast bar, full-size refrigerator and microwave.
The building features a sophisticated keyless system, allowing students to use an ID card to get into the building and a combination code to enter the bedrooms. The new dorm – RIC officials haven’t decided what to name it – only will be available to upperclassmen.
Fusco said the number of incoming freshmen and transfers this fall is the largest ever, at 2,271. Although that milestone might not be related to the new dorm, it is clear RIC officials would like to use the building as an enticement in the future.
“We anticipate that the new residence hall will serve as a source of great pride to the college as it contributes to the recruitment and retention of students, a richer and more vibrant campus life, and the expansion of educational opportunities for the students that we serve,” the college said on its Web site.
Teresa Brown, director of residential life and housing at RIC, said that is what today’s students are looking for.
“More students are requesting to live on campus for a variety of reasons: convenience to classes and the library, financial ease or to get the full college experience,” she said in a statement. “Our goal is to provide those services to students. The addition of the new hall will give more students the opportunity and benefit from living on campus.”
URI, too, is interested in keeping its students close to campus. Traditionally, many upperclassmen have lived off campus, where plenty of summer homes near waterfront areas are available for rent in the off-season.
“But we wanted to build our on-campus community more,” said Chip Yensan, assistant vice president of student affairs and director of student housing. The new dorms “are an attractive option for the students,” Yensan said.
Garrahy, Eddy and Wiley halls were the first dormitories built at URI since the early 1970s and are able to house a total of 800 students. Like RIC, the new buildings are only available to upperclassmen and offer apartment and suite-style living, with most bedrooms being single occupancy.
Yensan said students are allowed to select their roommates, even if their genders differ. And residents studying similar disciplines are clustered together, which Yensan said provides a “built-in support system” for students and creates natural study groups.
Now those students will be able to dine on some fancy foods at the new dining hall, which will not require any subsidy from the school to cover its costs (including the debt service on the bonds used to pay for its construction). The menu will include cooked-to-order Asian stir fry, grilled swordfish with miso-ginger sauce and beef empanadas.
And it is all in surroundings that look more like a stylish restaurant than a cafeteria.
“Students are different now, more demanding, more sophisticated, more worldly,” said Gianquitti. “They’re more restaurant-savvy. Our plans were that [the dining hall] look and feel like a restaurant, not like a high school cafeteria.”
With the new dorms and dining facility complete, Yensan said URI officials will focus on updating existing residential halls and adding other amenities.
The former Roger Williams Dining Hall, for example, is slated to be converted into a fitness center for students. “These are the things that students are increasing looking for,” Yensan said. •
