Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

On ‘Holiday’ Nearly 100freshmen are adjusting to hotel housing. IY ADAM BEAM HE GAMECOCK The fourth and fifth floors of the loliday Inn on Assembly Street lave been transformed into an >ther residence hall this semester, is the University Housing depart nent was flooded with past dead ine housing applications. Eighty-eight students and four staff members make up the two loors, with the fifth floor being all 'emale and the fourth floor all nale. “I would say that definitely nost people like it,” said fifth floor Resident Advisor Sharmon Leb ly. “They like having the bigger ieds, and housing has brought in extra dressers to suit the fact that there are two people in the room.” While the current arrange ment allows for the students to stay at the hotel for the remainder of the semester, most of the hotel luxuries still apply. Maid service changes the towels and linens once a day and does garbage pick up once a week. “Maintenance is really cool,” said Jolie Hillier, an Ohio native. “Yeah, they bring in, like, toi let paper and whatever,” said Mar garet “Meg” Strimpfel, from Hilton Head, S.C. “And they clean too. They’ll sweep and stuff. The only thing thatl think that stinks is the laundry, because we have to be shuttled [to some washing ma chines] or we can go up to Moore and use [the one there].” “They do that basically to keep up their own health codes,” said Lebby. “But that is pretty much all they are doing. We don’t get room service or anything like that.” Housing staff, along with the Ras, has done all they can to cre ate as much of a college dorm en vironment as possible. There has already been a hall meeting, and downstairs the Holi day Inn has set aside a study room. “I wouldn’t know the differ ence between this and a dorm,” said Strimpfel. “I guess it feels the same. There are people walking around, talking, coming in and I_I Rosanne Williams, a first-year student majoring in history, relaxes in her new “dorm” room on the fifth floor of the Assembly Street Holiday Inn. photo by aaron hark hanging out. It’s not that differ ent.” Pictures and posters are still allowed, but hotel staff has asked that students not drill holes in or use tape on the walls. Also, quiet hours are “more strictly enforced” out of respect to the hotel’s paying guests. - “We’ve tried to explain that to them (the students) and they real ly don’t seem to have a problem with it,” said Lebby. “They seem to be doing very well and the ho tel staff is very pleased with their behavior.” A spokesperson from Holiday Inn remarked that they are “tick led to death to have (the students) here. It’s a great situation for all of us and we are glad to have this opportunity to work with the Uni versity.” Felipe Chaves, a transfer stu dent from Brazil, had his doubts about staying in a hotel. “At first, I thought it was strange, and maybe even a prank, because they had just assigned me to a Holiday Inn,” said Chaves. “But everybody likes it. Who wouldn’t like to live in a hotel?” Also available to students is the opportunity to purchase a meal plan from the hotel. Students can purchase breakfast, dinner or a combination plan for $505, $706 and $931, respectively. Gene Luna, University Hous ing Director, is pleased with how things are going. “It’s gone absolutely beyond our expectations in a positive sense,” he said. “The students have responded extremely well, and once the parents saw the level of support, staff, technology and comfort, they were extremely pleased as well.” The current arrangement be tween the hotel and the university allows students to stay for the re mainder of the semester. Housing opportunities might be available from vacancies in the Greek housing, but students will not be forced to move out if those openings become available. “We’ve made a commitment to these students that if they’d like to stay there they can,” said Luna. “We don’t want to break up that community once they all get set tled.” New service lets students choose roommates online BY REBECCA WHITEHEAD THE GAMECOCK USC added a new Internet feature Saturday that gives stu dents easier access to housing in formation. The system, called UChoose, offers three new features for cur rent students. Students living on campus can check available rooms and coordinate roommate swaps. Next year, incoming stu dents will be able to view other students’ profiles to find poten tial roommates. Director for Administration of University Housing Gretchen Koehler said the program is bet ter for students and faculty. “They’ve had to swap, and we’ve had to use notebooks,” she said. “That really didn’t meet the needs of the students.” For students to switch rooms, both parties must agree to live in the other’s room, she said. Koehler said having student profiles online “would empower the students to decide what’s im portant” in a roommate and should prove more successful than the lifestyle questionnaires previously used. “There’s nothing to predict whether students will stay with roommates or not,” Koehler said. The profile feature won’t be available until next spring be cause it isn’t useful for students now, she said. Profile questions address smoking, times students wake up and go to sleep, music preferences and hours spent studying a week. Students will still need to go to the housing office on Blossom Street to implement any deci sions they make with UChoose. The program shows only what rooms and roommates are avail able, so students have to go to the office with their requests to make them official. Residence hall coordinators said they think it will help stu dents with housing needs. David Betsch, Residence Life Coordinator for Bates West, said students are aware of the system and can avoid going back and forth to the housing office. But it will show its effectiveness once rooms become available, he said. “It’s a shame, because occu pancy has been full,” Betsch said. “I don’t know if it can be utilized as one would hope.” Capstone Residence Life Co ordinator Eric Moschella said the busy year has left little housing available, but the system can only help the situation. UChoose can be accessed through USC’s VIP Web site un der the “Personal” tab. USG BRIEFS USC-Lancaster hires new interim dean Dr. John Catalano, a professor of philosophy at USC-Lancaster, has been named the branch uni versity’s new interim dean. He replaced Dr. Joe Pappin, who said he will return to teaching. USC President John Palms is confi dent Catalano will be a "solid leader for USC-L while the uni versity searches for a new dean.” Catalano began his position on Aug. 16. Since beginning at USC-L in 1982, Catalano has won the col lege’s Distinguished Teacher Award three times and the Gov ernor’s Distinguished Professor Award twice. He also served as chairman of the USC Regional Campuses Faculty Senate in 1994 and 1995. USC graduates first doctor of nursing USC’s College of Nursing has graduated its first Doctor of Nurs ing (N.D.) student. Linda Morphis was graduated from the program on Aug. 11, the first student to do so since the program began in 1999. Morphis had already earned two bachelor’s degrees, a mas ter’s degree in nursing from USC, and certfication as a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner. Mor phis was a nurse practitioner at the Thomson Student Health Cen ter between 1986 and 1995 and joined the College of Nursing’s faculty as a clinical assistant pro fessor in 1995. The N.D. program allows nurs es to both research and practice clinically. An N.D. can be a clini cal leader, advanced clinical prac titioner, clinical manager, clini cal researcher, professor or health care policy planner. USC opens Ray Bradbury exhibit Thomas Cooper Library has opened an exhibit on science-fic tion writer Ray Bradbury. The exhibit details Bradbury’s writing career from the 1940s to the present. The exhibit also showcases the first hardcover copy of his novel Fahrenheit 451, which USC fresh men studied for this year’s First Year Reading Experience. Also included in the exhibit are posters advertising Bradbury’s work, poems, essays, children’s stories and adaptations of his works as videos and comic books. The collection, which belongs to Anne Hardin of Beaufort, is on the mezzanine level of the li brary. Whaley's Mill Apartments Come in today! • Walk to USC • Roommate Matching Services • Flexible Leasing Definitely Not Run of the Mill 211 MAIN STREET Across from the College of Engineering AT USC 254-7801 'Sffl Si*' B THf Most EXClTiNG, Live jjj I eNtfRTaiNMfNt VfN'Uf 9 | COLUMBIA HAS TO OFFeB! 9 S AN OUTBIQfOUS, CONTAGIOUS 9 ■ Musical expfRifNcf ■ | (goOJ ©§ ?®p V®®? a | Msssft g | ®p g®p®p8D^ IpQPltyl! M p ^Q