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Fall 2022 Move-In: Housing and Residence Life Team Keeps SLU Community Together

by Maggie Rotermund

Room assignments. Dietary restrictions. Trips to Target and Trader Joe’s. All this and more are handled by the Housing and Residence Life team at Saint Louis University.

Director Manisha Ford-Thomas and her team have spent countless hours this summer preparing for Move-In and a successful 2022-23 academic year. Three hundred student workers, resident advisors, staff members and peer mentors have been planning and meeting since July to launch a successful Fall Welcome.

“We have an opportunity as residential life staff to help build community here at SLU,” Ford-Thomas said. “We can be there for team building as well as those difficult conversations that come up when strangers become neighbors and roommates.”

The Residential Life team will welcome 3,872 residents to campus over the next few days with the help of hall coordinators, student staff, move-in volunteers, Oriflamme, the Student Involvement Center and members of the Department of Public Safety, Distribution Services, Parking and Card, Event Services, Sodexo, Maintenance and Custodial and the grounds crew. 

“It truly is a commitment from the entire campus community to make the move-in a success and we are grateful for our campus partners,” said Lauren Davis, Interim Associate Director of Housing Operations & Facilities.

Ford-Thomas said her team is continually working on strengthening the ties between students in the residence halls and the rest of campus. That means aligning with SLU’s CORE, inviting faculty in for talks and making sure that students know how to access all the resources SLU campus has to offer.

“We work in partnership with Student Development and our faculty and staff to create a community here at SLU for our students,” Ford-Thomas said. “All our planning is with the overall wellness of the persons we serve in mind.”

Those wellness goals include making sure students know how to navigate college life, from remembering their SLU ID card to advocating for their dietary needs in the dining halls.

“We know how important a healthy diet is to overall well-being,” Ford-Thomas said. “We have a dietitian available to help our students find options to fit their needs.”

Growth Through Residential Life

All undergraduate full-time students are required to live on campus for the first two years of study, but many older students also live at Saint Louis University. 

The Housing and Residential Life office begins processing housing requests from current students in February for the next academic year. By mid-March, enrolled students who applied for housing have their assignments for fall. 

This year, the staff went through 4,300 applications between February and August. 

Planning for Move-In begins in April.

“There are many ‘behind the scenes’ logistics such as golf cart rentals, street permits, ordering marketing and communication materials, strategizing with our campus partners with building projects and space turnover,” said Davis. “The operations team works closely with our custodial and facilities team to ensure our campus is ready to welcome students back. These team members deserve so much credit for the work they put in on a very short timeline.”

SLU’s residence halls all feature 24-hour security desks, round-the-clock access to staff and campus ministers, laundry facilities and common spaces for community activity. 

Ford-Thomas said her team takes a community-building and growth-minded approach SLU’s residence halls.

Most first-year students live in Fusz Hall, Grand Hall, the Griesedieck Complex, Marguerite Hall, Reinert Hall, or Spring Hall. The first-year residences include features like bathrooms on each floor and shared gathering spaces. 

“By the second year, students are living more in rooms with friends,” Ford-Thomas said. “Those can include a shared bathroom among a smaller group.”

For upper-classmen who chose to remain in campus housing, Ford-Thomas said the goal is to have them in apartment-style residences like Grand Forest, Marchetti Towers, or The Village Apartments. 

“As they grow as young adults during their time at SLU, we want to help prepare them for a more independent life,” she said. 

Learning Communities

About half of these first-year students sign up to live in a learning community, a supportive group of fellow students with common academic interests who share many of the same classes for their first year at SLU, which can be a great source of support and advice. SLU now has 10 learning communities for students to choose from.

They include:

For students looking for a communal feel without the associated coursework, SLU offers theme housing. Theme communities currently include fraternity and sorority life, major exploration, transfer, and wellness communities.

Learn more about Housing and Residence Life