The 140 Louisiana transfer students enrolled at the university have all found housing for this semester after an initial scramble for open rooms in the area, university administrators reported Friday.
The Off-Campus Housing Services office contacted all of the upperclassmen transfer students last week and found that all but three had found off-campus housing for the semester or are commuting. These three students haven’t yet secured housing, but the university said they will soon.
“I knew that our community would rise to the challenge,” said Linda Clement, vice president for student affairs. “We had more offers than there were housing requests.”
The office received free housing offers for the students from the community, Clement said. Fraternities and sororities also opened their doors.
Tulane junior Ariel Cross wanted to room with her friend, Nadja Tilstra, a fellow Tulane student. The housing office told them about possible openings in the Delta Gamma sorority house, but there weren’t enough openings for the two to share a room together.
They struggled to find off-campus places willing to lease an apartment for only four months but were able to work out a leasing agreement with a landlord to live in a Knox Box apartment.
“It’s really not that bad,” Tilstra said. “We’re pretty close to campus; we’re right across the street from the South Campus Commons.”
Raquel Grant, a Tulane senior, didn’t have as much luck finding a suitable place after spending a week and a half searching for an apartment. She searched a list of openings from the housing office but ended up settling on commuting from Potomac every day with her father’s car.
“I don’t have a car,” Grant said. “I’ve been using my dad’s car, so if I got an apartment off campus, we were going to have to buy me a car, and that’s a lot of money we weren’t willing to spend.”
The majority of the transfer students were upperclassmen, and the university could only house the freshman transfers. The university placed about 40 freshmen in dorms, most of them on North Campus and in the North Hill community. The Department of Resident Life passed out shirts that said, “Tulane Terps,” similar to the shirts given to students living in dorms.
Resident Life called every student to find out their personal situation and to offer any assistance to ensure the students found housing, Clement said.
After learning that the students have secured housing, the Off-Campus Housing Office closed its lists for free housing offers and donations made by many community members.
“I think this is a catastrophe that we got,” she said. “We had to worry about accommodating the students, and that’s what we needed to do first.”
Contact reporters Laurie Au at lauriedbk@gmail.com and Jess Milcetich at milcetichdbk@gmail.com.
