St. Olaf College opened six new off-campus affiliate and nontraditional on-campus housing options. Many students did not learn about these options until they returned to campus this fall, contributing to discontentment amongst the student body regarding the current housing situation.
“It’s chaotic,” said Kalea Velasco ’27 in an interview, when asked to express how she felt about housing at St. Olaf this fall.
In the absence of a clear rationale, students were left wondering why these new housing options appeared months after housing assignments were made. One clear explanation would be the closure of Hilleboe-Kittelsby Hall for the 2024-2025 school year. The fact that this residence hall is offline, however, does not adequately explain the current situation.
“I just don’t understand how you would renovate a building without calculating that you have enough space,” said Annabel Boughey ’25 in an interview with the Olaf Messenger. “Do the math. Someone’s job must be to do this and obviously you got rid of the building with the most triples.”
Associate Dean of Students for Residence Life Christopher Medley and Vice President for Student Life Hassel Morrison point to this year’s melt and retention rates as factors contributing to the lack of available on-campus housing. The “melt” refers to the admitted students who opt to attend a different institution.
“The melt just didn’t happen like we anticipated,” said Morrison. This year’s melt rate was 5.8 percent, a 0.7 percent decrease from last year. The low melt rate in conjunction with the 92.2 percent retention rate, higher than in recent years, made for more students than the campus was prepared to house.
To remedy this issue, St. Olaf introduced temporary “Affiliate Housing” options: student housing that, while located off-campus, still operates under the St. Olaf Residence Life policies and procedures.
The six housing alternatives include: Northwood Pines and Southview Suites — both part of the greater Northfield Retirement Community (NRC) — Greenvale House, the Olaf & Casita Ole Houses, and “Ole Loop,” which includes Porter, Johnson, and Rose Houses.
Historically, houses on Ole Loop were used for student housing, but have not been in use since the opening of New Hall and the Townhouses in 2022. Casita and Greenvale Houses were on the rental market prior to this year.
Meanwhile, the idea to place students in open units at the two retirement houses was inspired by the long standing relationship between St. Olaf and the NRC.
“When we heard there was a housing need and we had some open space for St. Olaf, we said we should match this up because that would be a wonderful opportunity to continue our partnership that we have with St. Olaf College,” President and Executive Officer of the NRC Tom Nielsen said in an interview.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, NRC opened its doors to international students who could not return home. It regularly employs St. Olaf students and works in partnership with the St. Olaf Nursing Department. Students living in the retirement community echoed the positive relationship.
“I’ve actually really loved it,” Karen Henriquez Fajardo ’26 said about living in Southview Suites. “Oftentimes when people see us…they’ll tell us that they’re either an alum or that they’ve heard about St. Olaf.”
Despite the positive review, Henriquez Fajardo and other students living in the retirement community faced a couple of challenges moving in — some residents didn’t receive their IDs or building keys until later, leaving them to rely on their housemates to get in.
For students living in the houses on Ole Loop, Casita, and Greenvale, acquiring their keys was the least of their concerns.
“When we arrived, we stayed a whole week without internet,” a Residence Life student worker who lives in an affiliate house said in an interview. “The house was not cleaned before we arrived, so there were dead animals like frogs and rats.”
According to some residents, the houses were either empty or not fully furnished when they moved in, even though the Residence Life website claims that “each space is thoughtfully equipped to meet the needs of students, providing an ideal space for studying and socializing.”
“I still don’t have a desk chair,” Abby Nevin ’26 said in an interview. “Yes, [the house is] off campus, but at the same time, you should obviously still have the bed, but then the desk, the chair — all of this stuff that just should come with it.”
Currently, Nevin lives in Greenvale after moving from a 12-person room in Ytterboe Hall. Although she has found the Greenvale living experience enjoyable, making the house livable is an ongoing process.
“It wasn’t ready for anyone to move in, honestly,” Valesco said in an interview. “There weren’t any curtains in the entire house, and there weren’t shower rods either.” According to Valesco, Greenvale also wasn’t equipped with any other furniture besides beds.
Since they moved in, Greenvale residents have faced issues with a broken AC, a non-working washing machine, and an ongoing mouse problem.
When asked in an interview about the reasoning behind the delay in furnishing homes, Medley said it was due to the “timeframe in which [the College] took possession of [the houses]” as each house came to be acquired at different times throughout the summer. Greenvale House wasn’t acquired by the College until Aug. 18.
Despite the varied experiences students have had with the off-campus housing options, the overall student sentiment is strongly in favor of off-campus housing options.
“It just does not make sense for St. Olaf to continue pushing only on-campus resident lifestyles because they literally would not have been able to have had this year without having people like me and my housemates accept the offer to live off campus,” Henriquez Fajardo said.
Even residents in Ole Loop, Greenvale, and Casita are advocating to continue their housing options for the future despite the hardships they have faced in getting settled.
“I’m really enjoying living in this house,” the Residence Life worker said. “St. Olaf owns so many houses around campus…and they rent to Northfielders. They could give that to the students that don’t have housing. I just feel that they’re investing in the wrong area.
Kenzie Nguyen is a junior English major with a concentration in International Relations from Brooklyn Park, Minn.. When not in the office, Kenzie enjoys walking around town, exploring Content Bookstore, watching reality tv and movies, and chatting with her friends. She dreams about owning her own little breakfast and coffee nook. In the future, Kenzie hopes to be a news and politics reporter.
Madeline Altman
Madeline is a senior English and political science major from Portland, Ore.. When not busy writing or editing for the Mess, she can be found hammocking on the quad, planning her next trip to Europe, or curled up with a good book. After St. Olaf, she is looking forward to living in a big city, adopting a cat, and pursuing a career in writing (possibly journalism…?).