The impending reorganization of the entire division of student development is the talk of the school, and as a commuter, these changes will affect me personally.

I understand why things are being changed: a desire to use funds more efficiently, unify the division so students don’t feel restricted in using the school’s resources and increasing retention rates are all honorable motivations. However, I, and many of my fellow commuters, feel that the few perks we currently have will soon be lost.

There are thousands of commuter and transfer students and only five collegia on campus that serve as our homes away from home – a place to nap, socialize, eat food or just relax when we don’t know where else to go.

Each collegium ensures that each commuter and transfer student has found a place suitable to their needs, simiarly to how there are distinctions between dorms. The Reidy Collegium, for instance, serves juniors and seniors in engineering, science and nursing. We like that collegia have distinctions. We’ve picked which group we want to be a part of and have grown close to our respective communities. Now imagine that all students living on campus were reallocated to new dorms for the convenience of school operations – people would be furious. Commuters feel no different.

With certain collegia being closed and merging with others in the student center, we feel the new space will be cramped, and that the connections we have worked to make will be more difficult to keep. I know many commuters who will no longer use collegia once the changes are made.

It’s impossible to please every community, but it is troubling that there was not more discussion or information available before changes were announced—especially for an already marginalized group such as the commuter community.
—Melissa Lin, News Editor