University Housing Services (UHS) partnered with others in the division and hosted Quarantine and/or Isolation spaces for a total of 4,860 nights throughout the pandemic. Students' needs were creatively met in a variety of ways including providing transportation, delivering meals, follow-up testing, and hosting virtual events and case management drop-in hours.
Residential Case Managers provided individualized attention to students in quarantine and isolation through virtual office hours, bird call follow-up, and virtual events such as ongoing trivia nights.
UHS created a new Move-In structure complete with individualized arrival times to better meet our students' needs and the flexibility needed to ensure all students could move in and out in a physically distanced manner.
During the Summer of 2021, UHS is spending $100,000 to make the temperature controls in Watterson Towers more flexible to student needs, allowing separate quadrants of the towers to be independently set to heat or air conditioning (as opposed to having the whole complex on heat or air conditioning).
During the Summer of 2021, UHS is painting over 400,000 square feet of walls in all areas to keep spaces looking fresh and inviting for students.
University Housing gave out over 4,000 thermometers to residents during Move-In to help combat COVID-19.
Housing launched a YouTube channel, HousingISU, which featured 360 view interactive virtual tour videos of all residence hall rooms. These virtual room views directly contributed to recruitment efforts by providing accessibility to the residence halls during a time where in-person tours were not feasible due to the pandemic. The account won a social media award from the University for Most Innovative Social Media account of the year.
University Housing broke a record for Birds Give Back, with a total of $2,235 donated from 50 individual gifts, the most unique number of gifts ever secured by the department.
The June 2021 social media announcement celebrating PRIDE month and the addition of the new Rainbow Floor proved the most successful Instagram post of all time, with 324 reactions.
255 student employees were hired in FY21.
The Alternative to Alcohol budget funded 85 programs using over 50% of the budget.
There is a 0.3 GPA difference between students who lived on Themed Living Learning Communities (TLLCs) and students who lived on non-TLLC floors.
Resident/Community Assistants hosted over 850 programs throughout the year, with almost 70% of those being in-person.
The Association of Residence Halls (ARH) won a student involvement award for Outstanding Social/Entertainment Program of the Year for their Wellness Wednesday programming series.
Resident/Community Assistants participated in active discussions regarding diversity, equity, and social justice through a small group discussion forum, as well as reading the book How to be an Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram Kendi.
The Watterson Mail Room logged 23,650 packages for residents. The campus-wide mailrooms logged 56,455 packages for all of the halls.
In April 2021, Tri-Towers partnered with ISU’s Audiology program to provide hearing screenings to anyone across campus who requested them.
The average cumulative GPA for the UHS Resident/Community Assistant team is 2.93. 61 RAs/CAs earned over a 3.5 for the spring semester, 32 earned a 4.0, and 5 have a cumulative 4.0 GPA to date.