Residence hall overflow moved to The Grove from MWSU Campus Watch on Vimeo.

This year’s freshman class is the biggest the school has seen since 1991. It has 250 more students than the average freshman class and is causing an overflow in residence halls.

“I tried to get into the dorm. They told me I would have to be in overflow for a semester,” Connor Bennett, a sophomore in business marketing, says.

“I thought I had a dorm ready to get set up, and all situated (dip white) I went to the furthest room in the hallway with a coat rack. I thought they put me in a broom closet,” Lee Gaddie III, a freshman, cardio-respiratory therapy, says.

“We currently have 93 Students who are living over at The Grove right now. We have 31 apartments,” Angie Reay, assistant director of housing and residence life, said.

Reay said this is the third time in six years that an overflow situation has happened.

“Our freshman class is going to continue to grow, so this is probably going to be a trend over the next few years,” Reay says.

Housing workers are making an effort to help these students forced to live off campus. Shuttle buses now charter students from The Grove to campus and back. Also, campus police now have jurisdiction over the 31 apartments rented.

Since these students are forced to live off campus, they pay the same rate as freshman living in the dorms. But just because these freshman are living off campus, doesn’t mean they get a free pass to do what they want.

“They follow the same rules as our on campus apartments. They are allowed to have a guest over for three consecutive nights. If it becomes an issue, then we do have two resident assistants who are over there as well too,” Reay says.

Entering the third week of school, some students are being moved from The Grove into housing on campus, and others are out of the study rooms and in actual dorm rooms.

“They moved me into a dorm with a roommate now. Now I’m on like the second floor. There’s a lot more space, a lot more comfortable,” Gaddie says.

“I told them to call me if anything opened up and someone moved out so they called me last week (dip white) I’m looking forward to being on campus and being close to everything,” Bennett said.

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