The North Mid-Quads and South Mid-Quads halls will be left unoccupied during the Fall and Winter quarters in an effort to fill other residence halls to their maximum occupancies and leave fewer vacant rooms spread across campus housing.

Students and Residential Assistants who were originally assigned to the two South Campus buildings, which each can house about 80 students, were relocated to live in other residence halls on campus, said Paul Riel, executive director of Residential Services.

“The math just doesn’t make sense for us to leave that building open with fewer students living in it,” he said. “So, we’re consolidating those students into the rest of the campus.”

The closing of these two residence halls does not mean there are fewer students living in on-campus housing, Riel said. There have always been empty rooms scattered among all of the halls, so Residential Services decided to fill halls to their maximum capacity and close the “underutilized” housing, he said.

Students planning to live in NMQ and SMQ were notified of the housing change via email, which said the reassignment was due to “previously unforeseen facility and maintenance issues.” The message also cited the Residence and Board Contract, which says, “The University reserves the right to reassign Student at any time during the contract period for any reason, including but not limited to space availability.”

Rising Weinberg sophomore De’Sean Weber was one of the students who had planned to live in NMQ during the upcoming school year. After living in the residence hall last year, Weber said he was “looking forward to living in a small community” again. With the change, which he said will take some readjustment to get used to, Weber will be living in a single in the Foster-Walker Complex next year instead of a single in NMQ.

“I’m not too upset about it, just happy they told me before I arrived to school,” he said.

Although the Mid-Quads will be closed during the first two quarters, Riel said they would be opened during Winter Break, when NU will offer break housing for the entire student body.

“Students who choose to stay for Winter Break housing, we would utilize the Mid-Quads to accommodate those students during break,” he said.

Last year, NU made Winter Break housing available for the first time, but exclusively to international students.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @paigeleskin