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In a Lantern online poll last week, 65 percent of respondents indicated Ohio State should not adopt a two-year residency program.
"It's too expensive to live in the dorms," said Marysha Sarris, a junior in hospitality management and theater. Sarris added she would not have wanted to remain in the dorms after her freshman year. "The living arrangement in the dorms is not suitable for adults."
Gee defended his plan in a meeting with Lantern staff last week and discussed the benefits of his two-year residency program. He also addressed some of the criticisms of the plan, including financial concerns from students seeking more affordable off-campus living and the implications for campus-area landlords.
"It reminds me when I proposed that every student at Vanderbilt live on campus for all four years. It was greeted with about 80 percent negativity," Gee told Lantern staff, adding that a recent Vanderbilt poll indicated after the first year about 80 percent are now in favor of the policy.
Gee said he believes the plan will create a more intellectual academic community for students.
"There are all sorts of studies... about the fact that the more the students live with each other and the more they are engaged with each other in a campus environment the better their experience, the better the graduation rates are, the better the retention rates are, the happier they are. I mean, the data is just overwhelming," he said.
Addressing concerns that remaining on campus a second year could be financially debilitating for some students, who would otherwise seek more affordable living off-campus, Gee said an affordability pledge has been made, ensuring no student admitted to OSU will be financially stricken.
"The affordability pledge is simply that we will make sure that any student admitted to Ohio State will be able to afford to come to Ohio State and that also includes what we are trying to do with our housing policy," he said. "What we're about is creating an environment for students, no matter what their economic circumstances are, to have a true collegiate experience."
While unable to say whether the costs living on-campus would be equivalent to those off-campus, he did say dorm living would remain competitive.
"This is not about the economics of the university," he said. "It's about a change in our culture, which ultimately will be about economics because I think that we will make it a much more interesting place to be, and therefore more students will stay and they will graduate faster."
Addressing the concerns about the implications for the off-campus area once the plan is implemented, Gee said he hopes to work with off-campus housing to create a more conducive environment for students once they move out of the dorms.
"The only people who should be concerned about this policy are the landlords who take advantage of our students," he said. "On the other hand, those that are concerned about our students and concerned about quality housing, they will be very positively impacted because we will make certain that our housing policies are very effective in support of them."
Gee said that if it were viable he would require students to live on campus all four years, but conceded that such a plan is impossible at this point with close to 40,000 undergraduates attending OSU.
"I would have to build a village close to the size of Columbus to make that happen, almost," Gee said in jest. "But moving to two years at least gives everyone a very solid under footing."
Briony Clare can be reached at clare.6@osu.edu.
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