Campus housing to close over break

In 2014, Rick Bradley, associate director of housing and residential education, said keeping residence halls open for Thanksgiving was a possibility. This year, even with more students staying on campus over break than ever before, most of UNC’s residence halls will remain closed.

UNC has never kept its buildings open over Thanksgiving break, he said.

“We do seek to give our own staff a break from duty coverage at times so they can be with their family,” Bradley said.

Another reason the housing department closes most residence halls is as a safety precaution, he said.

“We are concerned about the safety aspect of that, just having such a large building with only a couple of students in it,” Bradley said.

Taylor Bates, Residence Hall Association president, said some residence halls remain open for students who choose to stay on campus over break, but it’s unrealistic for all residence halls to remain open.

“I do think it would be nice in an ideal world if we could have all of these buildings open over break,” Bates said. “But what the housing department has historically stressed is that it is advertised in advance that Craige, Carmichael, Ram Village, Odum Village are housing options that will be open over these break periods.”

In previous years, students who did not live in one of the open buildings and requested break housing stayed in a lounge room in one of the open buildings, Bradley said.

But this year UNC housing is at its lowest occupancy rate in years, Bates said.

“This year I believe the occupancy level is about 92 percent, which is pretty low compared to what it normally is,” Bates said. “Two of our buildings are currently offline.”

Bradley said those two buildings, Everett Residence Hall and Stacy Residence Hall, will be used this year to house the 50 students staying on campus over break who do not live in one of the open residence halls.

Bradley said there might be more students staying on campus due to an increase in international students.

Despite efforts to accommodate the increase in international students, first-year Patrick Dow, from England, and sophomore Harrison White, an exchange student from Australia, have elected to not participate in break housing.

“I’m surprising my mother and sister by flying home,” Dow said.

Dow said if he had stayed in the U.S., several friends offered to host him for the holiday.

White said he is traveling to Nashville to visit family friends — and he doesn’t know any international students who are staying on campus during break.

He said he knows more people traveling to major cities such as Miami, New Orleans and New York.

“When you’re in America for a certain period of time, you make the most of it,” White said.

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