The University of Idaho Argonaut

In conjunction with the economy, making it home this year for winter break can be more expensive than ever. The Housing Department took this idea into consideration, and is offering an early Christmas present.
“We want to provide an opportunity for students who either don’t want to go home or the means to go home for winter break,” said Ray Gasser, director of University Housing.

The Housing Department is offering students the opportunity to stay in the Living Learning Community over winter break Dec. 20 through Jan. 11.
There is a fee to live on campus over winter break.
“It costs $400 to offset our costs to enable this to happen, such as staffing, as well as pay for emergency response,” Gasser said.
Students with have to relocate over the winter period and no food services, such as Bob’s Place, will be open.
“The dorms do not have kitchenettes, as the LLCs do,” he said. “Their eating needs can be met with the kitchenettes located on each floor.”

Not all the buildings will be open for use, requiring some students to change dorms.
If all of the buildings were available, the cost would skyrocket exponentially, as well as staffing costs, he said.
Although applications are already available in the University Housing main office, Gasser said he isn’t worried about an overflow of students. The number of rooms available determines the student limit, and he said the numbers are expected to be low this year.
“This is the first year, so this idea isn’t as known as it will be in a year,” he said. “We should have an increase in students who want to stay next year. As for this break, it probably will be a small handful of students.”

The idea originated from the nations economic circumstances, said Tina Deines, the marketing and recruitment coordinator for the Housing Department.
“With our new director we are always trying to come up with new ideas to help students out,” Deines said.
With the students as their main focus, she said this idea will hopefully cater to students’ living needs over break.
 “We are continuing to revise policies and protocols,” Gasser said. “I feel that enabling students to have the choice of staying on campus provides a particularly strong incentive.”