By Megan D. Prock

The bid for on-campus accommodations has begun and as the housing lottery results in a waiting list of about 1,600 students, one housing option is being taken off the market.

Simmons University’s Morse Hall is presently home to 120 Northeastern transfer students who commute to campus on a shuttle provided by NU. Simmons’ distance from NU’s main campus has been a source of continuing complaints among its residents, but that will soon come to an end as Simmons will not be an option offered to NU students next fall.

“It was difficult because [the shuttles] weren’t on a set schedule,” said sophomore English major Amanda Garrick, a former Simmons resident who has since moved into campus housing on Huntington Avenue. “You could wait anywhere from five to 30 minutes. It was inconvenient not to be on campus.”

Ed Klotzbier, director of university communications, admitted that Simmons was no one’s first choice.

“It was not an ideal living situation,” Klotzbier said. “We tried as best as we could to provide transportation, but the ideal is to keep them on campus.”

The university is eliminating distant housing options like Simmons in an attempt to build a stronger campus life.

“We are trying to develop community. Historically it hasn’t been a residential campus,” Klotzbier said.

Garrick echoed Klotzbier’s emphasis on community, saying that she felt isolated from the Northeastern community and that it had a negative impact on her ability to meet new friends at NU.

Celeste Marino, a sophomore history major currently living at Simmons, doesn’t feel like the transportation is an inconvenience but said she would not live at Simmons again.

“The entire building is full of transfers and it just gives everyone another reason to transfer,” Marino said. “I would definitely prefer to live on campus.”

Yet, with over 1,600 students remaining on the waiting list, some wonder why a residence hall, despite the location, is being removed next year.

“I don’t understand why NU would eliminate a housing opportunity when most of the people I know were not given a lottery number,” said junior biology major Courtney Montague, who was also wait-listed.

Junior criminal justice major Erin Paul who was also on the waiting list, said she would not live at Simmons even if given the option.

“No, I wouldn’t live there.

It is to far away. If I wanted to live at Simmons I would go to that school,” Paul said.

Hilary McMurray, a middler sociology major and former Simmons resident, said that she would also not move back to Simmons.

“Not a chance,” she said. “They could pay me to live there and I wouldn’t.”

Klotzbier is uncertain of the effect eliminating Simmons will have on the length of next year’s wait list but remains optimistic.

“We were able to accommodate everyone last year and our hope is to be able to continue to do that,” he said.

“It is unfair that people have to come here from different states and have to find an apartment and live on their own,” said Kristen Giunta, a middler American Sign Language major. “I am stuck. I am from New York and if I don’t find housing I can’t go to school.”

According to Klozbier, the university can currently house 6,560 students, but has an undergraduate enrollment of about 14,000. This means that campus housing is available for less than half of the current student body.

Klotzbier emphasized the improvement in the amount of on-campus housing in recent years, saying that more than 2,000 beds have been added at Northeastern over the last 10 years and that the university is “serious about this.”

With the opening of the West Village in 1999 Northeastern went from being able to accommodate one third of NU students to nearly half, and in the last four years has opened seven new residence halls. Buildings G and H are scheduled to open in 2004 and will offer a total of 485 additional beds.

“We are always reviewing other alternatives as to what we can do to provide more housing,” Klotzbier said. “We don’t want you to have to go down the street. We want you to live in our luxurious apartments here.”

Since her move, Garrick has embraced the many advantages of living closer to campus.

“I feel like I am meeting more people,” she said. “I feel like I am more a part of Northeastern life.”

As housing selections take place, Garrick is relieved that Simmons is absent from the residence hall list.

“I think it was a horrible thing to begin with,” she said.