The deadline for next year's on-campus housing applications arrives in just a few weeks and students can expect some changes as the residential campus initiative takes shape.
The residential campus initiative is Elon University's plan to further its goal of "engaged learning." Part of the plan tailors to housing by students' class year.
First year students will be assigned housing in the Historic Neighborhood or the Global Neighborhood, where construction is nearing completion, according to the new plan. Their sophomore year, students would be expected to move to the Danieley flats and apartments, juniors would live in the Oaks while seniors would live at The Station at Mill Point.
The arrangement means to give first year students a living environment that would promote a sense of community while also keeping them close to on-campus opportunities and activities.
Alicia O'Brien, the Program Assistant for Housing Operations, said this is where the initiative meets Elon's goal of engaged learning.
"We feel like students who live on campus are more engaged and their more connected to their university," O'Brien said. "Obviously in order to provide that, we need to provide more housing for students on campus so that instead of just freshmen and sophomores living on campus. Hopefully we can be able to accommodate everyone on campus."
Unlike many college campuses that usually only house freshmen and sophomore students on campus, one of Elon's goals is to keep students on campus all four years. Through this initiative Elon hopes to get 75 percent of students in on-campus housing.
O'Brien says change is coming, but it will be gradual.
"You're going to see little changes," she said. "This year will be the initial kickoff and you'll see the change with where people are living and there's going to be more juniors and seniors who are going to be able to live on campus."
"It's gonna take time," O'Brien said. "It's gonna be a long process, but we're starting it now."
Elon expects to finish the initiative by 2020.