COPYRIGHT 2011, THE TRANSCRIPT
“What is wrong with OWU, all international students are going to be CHARGED for staying in THIS THANKSGIVING BREAK, and no rooms for you all for the Winter Break! I am very angry at this! If you feel the same way, we need to do something!”
This Facebook status, posted on Oct. 17, was the first “unofficial” announcement of the housing policy for international students over some academic year breaks and how it may affect students.
Since the posting, student across campus have expressed frustrations, formulated lists of questions and waded through rumors surrounding the policy “change.”
Wendy Piper, director of residential life, said only the implementation of an official policy has changed, not the policy itself.
“The official policy is that all students will be charged for staying on campus as they register to stay over break,” she said. “This is our housing policy. The policy has not changed, it has just been a practice of ours to not charge international students for staying over Thanksgiving or spring break.”
Chaplain Jon Powers said though he has heard little information about the housing policy situation, he believes that there’s been a lot of miscommunication, and that students are feeling “blindsided” by the news.
“I’m concerned about the students’ welfare,” Powers said. “It’s hard enough to be on campus over winter break.”
Powers also said he is concerned about the students’ reaction, and how it will be dealt with by Residential Life.
“I am in no way being critical,” he said. “I’m just concerned about the well-being of the students involved.”
Piper said the rumor that students are to be consolidated in the Thompson basement is not completely true.
“We are working on a proposal for consolidating students over break,” she said. “This is not something new; we have done this in the past, just not in recent years. We are not anticipating using the ground floor of Thompson. We anticipate keeping open the Citizens of the World House, Phi Delta Theta and Bashford Hall.”
With three weeks until Thanksgiving break, there has yet to be a formal announcement about the policy implementation.
Junior Guanyi Yang, who is from China, is a resident assistant (RA) in Smith Hall. He said he was told he had to pay to stay in a meeting with his supervisor.
“The only time it was ‘formally’ announced to us was at a meeting of international students planning their Thanksgiving trip to New York, and that we’ll be charged for the days that we will be on campus,” he said.
Around 30 students, generally upperclassmen, are eligible to go on this annual trip.
Piper said staff members have been prepared to answer students’ questions about the policy.
“All the new international students were informed by the International and Off Campus office prior to their matriculation,” she said. “We have been in touch with some of the RAs that are acting as a voice for international students and taking that feed back. We’re hoping to put together something for the international students that this will affect.”
Piper said the change has been in the works for “a number of years.”
“The question of equity was coming up frequently, that there were students who had the privilege of staying on campus without being charged and others who did not,” she said. “The implementation of this [policy change] is that students will be charged equally for services rendered over the break.”
Yang said international students usually stay on-campus because there is nowhere else to go.
“It’s the school that requires to us to be on campus in the first place,” Yang said. “For myself, I am going on the New York trip for Thanksgiving, and for the rest of break just come back. As far as I know, most of my friends don’t know where to go, and they don’t want to pay the rate. The reason they stay here is because they don’t have money to travel.”
Piper said the cost for staying on campus during break is a fee of $20 a night.
”[It’s] certainly much cheaper than a nearby hotel room,” she said. “Because of so many services that are unavailable on campus, we encourage students to go elsewhere. We don’t expect you to go home, but many students have family in the states or go home with other students to experience Thanksgiving with an American family.”
Junior Dasom Yang, a native of South Korea, said he was upset.
“I was really pissed off because, as an international student, it’s a sensitive thing,” he said. “If you’re 14 hours away by plane, you can’t go back any time you want. Thanksgiving break is just too short to pay $1,500 for a plane ticket.
“The school had to decide on some of the changes, that’s fine,” he said. “But there should’ve been students involved in it, voicing their concerns, and the school should’ve listened to our situations first, and then announce it formally so we’re aware of the decisions that the school is making.”
Piper said the issue has always been about fairness.
“It has never been stated explicitly in the housing agreement that international students would not be charged for staying,” she said. “It didn’t quite seem appropriate that they received a privilege that other students, who may also have a legitimate reason for staying on campus, were not receiving.”
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