There is a certain ritual that some students go through at the beginning and end of spring and winter break-moving out and then back into their dorms.
Students who live on campus have to move out over these semester interims because all of the residences on campus, with the exception of Richardson Towers and the Carpenter Complex, close over breaks.
This happens for certain reasons, according to Peter Gronendyk, associate director of Residence Life.
He said the major reason is the high cost of running the facilities for a small number of students.
"From a cost perspective, we just can't run the dorms and hire staff for a few students," he said. "It's difficult to run staff because most of the staff are students themselves."
Brittany Pettis, a junior health and human performance major, is a desk assistant in Mynders Hall. She said there are people willing to work over breaks if the dorms stayed open.
"A lot of residents that come through prefer that the dorms stay open," she said. "It's inconvenient that people have to find somewhere to go and something to do with themselves."
Gronendyk said that Residence Life understands the dilemma some students that live out of town may face if they are not able to go home during semester interims.
"It is a concern of ours, so we encourage students who know they will have to stay here over the breaks to stay in Richardson Towers or the Carpenter Complex from the start," he said. "We have plenty of space and most of them are open."
Malorie Bridger, a sophomore journalism major, said moving out is a minor inconvenience.
"I live in Mynders and my parents live two miles away, so I just threw a suitcase together for spring break," she said. "But it sucks if you forget something, because you can't go back in at all."
She also said that moving out for winter break is more of a hassle.
"You have to move more stuff, like everything, and then move it all back in again," she said.
Amy Jitiam, a sophomore sports management major and resident of Rawls Hall, said she couldn't go home to Massachusetts because it would have been too expensive.
"But I knew people in town that I could stay with, so it wasn't a big inconvenience," she said.
Jitiam said that even though she doesn't like the policy, she knows that she would have just moved into Richardson Towers in the first place if moving out was really going to be a problem.
"I assume they won't let us stay because they can't get the RA's or the desk workers to stay, but it would probably be much better if they hired more people," she said. "It would make things a lot easier if we could just stay."
