March 2003			The Play's the Thing America's Bandstand The World Turned Upside Down	E Line Sports Q&A Books Alumni Passages Classes From the Field First-Person Letters Huskiana
		Q&A: Marina Iannalfo, Residential Life Through its twenty-seven dormitory and residential facilities, Northeastern currently provides housing for some 6,400 undergraduate and 140 graduate students. Two new halls—West Village G and H—are scheduled to open in 2004, adding another 485 beds to the campus inventory. Here, Iannalfo discusses the ins and outs of university residential life. Q. The university has opened seven new residence halls since 1999, and is currently building two more along Huntington Avenue. One gets the idea that there’s an endless demand for student housing. A. Absolutely. The demand for upperclass housing is where we’ve experienced the most growth. In 1998, we had 2,359 applications for upperclass housing. For fall 2003, we have 5,808. Of those, we’ve had to wait-list about 1,600. Q. Name a few ways the typical 2003 Northeastern residence hall is different from the 1973 model. A. The new halls have a much higher percentage of single bedrooms. In fact, Building H will be the first Northeastern hall to have all single bedrooms. The other major change over the years is the state-of-the-art amenities—air conditioning, dishwashers, garbage disposals, and much nicer common areas. Q. What are some of the other amenities students are looking for? A. They want to be as centrally located to classrooms and dining options as possible, and to live in new construction that allows them some level of privacy in a shared apartment. Q. Theme options seem to be popular among students these days. Any new ones on the horizon? A. We continue to look for ways to expand our academic theme housing options. In fall 2003, we’re adding a business administration floor. Q. Northeastern’s signature housing photograph shows students enjoying a spectacular view of Boston from a penthouse apartment in West Village. What type of competition exists for that unit? A. It’s amazing. Each year, as we facilitate the room-selection process, the students come to us with a list of specific room numbers, and most of them are the ones with the best views. The Northeastern student is an absolutely savvy consumer when it comes to the space they want to live on campus. Q. How much time does the average Northeastern student spend in the dorm? Is it basically just a place to sleep? A. Freshmen tend to spend more time in the common areas and lounges around campus, because their rooms are so tight. The upperclassmen, who live in facilities with common living rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms, spend much more time in their rooms. Our challenge is getting them out more to socialize. Q. What’s the wall art of choice in dorm rooms these days? A. A lot of nameless people in bikinis and skimpy bathing suits. Q. What’s the strangest roommate incompatibility story you’ve heard? A. I recently heard of two women living in the same freshman dorm room who were having a disagreement, yet they were not on speaking terms. So they were literally sitting back-to-back in the same room, arguing with each other through instant messaging via the Internet! Q. Strangest phone call from a parent? A. This is actually a cute story. We received a call from a parent this fall on the first day of school, asking us to go to her son’s room and wake him up so he wouldn’t be late for his first class. Q. Strangest illegal pet? A. Recently, some students opened up a hole in their wall, and were keeping live lobsters in a tank in there—and later cooking them. I believe the case is now making its way through the judicial affairs process. Q. Okay, last one: What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of a student doing in a dorm room? A. It’s amazing how many fires we’ve had stemming from students cooking popcorn in the microwave. We joke about implementing a basic microwave cooking program at orientation. Q. What’s the best advice you could give someone who’s about to live in a college dorm for the first time? A. Students need to be really conscious of the amount of space available to them in their room, and understand that, perhaps for the first time, they’ll be required to share. Most students are coming from homes where they have their own bedroom, and they’re used to having a lot of privacy and a lot of space. Both of these things get taken away from them when they come to school.