University of Texas Permian Basin is looking at adding programming to its residence hall that would help first-year students make the transition from high school to college easier.
“We’re looking at bringing some tutoring services to the residence halls. We’re looking at some Student Success, academic planning programs, and really targeting first-year students because we know that the transition from high school to college, no matter where you are, is tough,” Director of Housing Lin Crowson said.
She added that students get a lot of help from the Student Success Center and Dean of Student Success Michael Frawley has a lot of good things happening there.
“One of the things we want to do next year is really partner with them and think about ways that we can bring some of that stuff here, because in an ideal universe, students would always be going there. But I think sometimes for them to really take advantage of it we need to go to where the students are,” Crowson said.
“… We’re in the initial planning stages of what that might look like.”
The idea is to make it super convenient to find resources. Sometimes universities rely on students to find all the things they need.
Crowson said they are thinking about reaching out to students who haven’t taken advantage of available help and looking at how to catch them before it’s too late.
“How can we intervene that very first semester before things have progressed and students are discouraged? We’re really looking at targeting before midterms that first semester, so the first six weeks, making sure students know about the Student Success Center; bringing some tutoring to the residence halls; making sure that we’re re-emphasizing the things that they’re already getting,” making sure they’re going to office hours, going to class and offering a little bit of encouragement, Crowson said.
In the past 10 years, she said, universities have begun to think about the achievement gaps and how various campus groups can help.
“Different people have different connections with students and different abilities to help, so if you have a student that is in a certain major … they’ve got their advisor and they’ve got their professors, but the idea behind adding the residence halls to it is if that’s an on-campus student who’s living in the residence halls, then that’s just (an) extra safety net around that student …,” Crowson said.
“The expectation isn’t that people who work in the residence halls are able to solve all of your problems, but it’s sort of a stop gap of oh, we see that you’re struggling with this, or you’ve identified that you’re having trouble in this class let’s see if we can get you connected in a way that is meaningful,” she added.
Another thing that may be coming is learning communities. Learning communities are groups of students who share interests, classes or majors. On the academic part, it would make connecting on group projects and assignments easier.
“We haven’t really dived very deep into it because … we’ve just started looking at it. It takes at least an academic year to plan something like that because there’s a lot of campus stakeholders that are a part of that,” Crowson said.
Crowson doesn’t anticipate this will be ready to go until potentially fall of 2024 or 2025.
“These things take a long time to plan, but I think that this building (the Residence Dining Hall) is really well set up for that. … There’s a lot of really great, organic meeting space and it’s central to campus. I think that the administration on campus is really receptive to new program ideas that might be helpful to UTPB students,” Crowson said.
UTPB can house 1,100 students on campus and there are 310 bed spaces specifically reserved for freshmen or first-year students.
The three-story Residence Dining Hall is the newest building having opened about seven years ago. It includes both dorm rooms and a dining hall.
The building encloses 94,473 square feet of residence hall space and a two-story dining hall that has 14,772 square feet.
“I would say that we’re between 60 and 70% occupancy. I think during COVID a lot of students went home (or) moved off campus. I know Dr. (Becky) Spurlock (senior vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management) worked with the housing director to release people from their housing contracts and so it’s in line I think with a lot of housing programs are seeing recovering from the COVID period and everyone returning to in-person,” Crowson said.
Freshmen aren’t required to live on campus.
“There are a good number of students that are local that live on campus. We also have a good number of our student athletes living on campus,” she said.
About 17% of the current on-campus population is local.
There is a small number of faculty and staff that live on campus in one of the older apartment pods.
“I know that sometimes when we are receiving faculty and staff who are moving here from out of town, the university tries to provide some housing just to have a buffer for them as they’re looking for a place to live,” Crowson said.
There are some that also decided to stay living on campus.
“I think that having a vibrant on-campus population really helps the university feel like a community. When there’s a lot of activities happening, when there are students around after 5 o’clock, 5:30 when the faculty and staff are gone. I think that really helps it feel like a more traditional university for sure,” Crowson said.
