Pilots Prevent
Residence Life
January 26, 2021
As resident students settle into their new homes on The Bluff, they will inevitably encounter the usual stresses that accompany dorm life—setting boundaries and personal space, accommodating homework needs, dealing with demanding schedules, loneliness, isolation, or plain old homesickness—with the added stress of navigating campus life while observing COVID-19 protocols. It can be challenging in single occupancy rooms but even more so when two students share a room. Living with a roommate will require more negotiating now that we are striving to reduce the spread of the virus in our community.
While single occupancy residence hall rooms were available to all students returning to campus for Spring semester, it didn’t take long for residence life staff to notice that many of them requested to be allowed to have roommates. While no triple or quadruple rooms fit the University’s COVID-19 protocols, it was decided to allow two-person occupancy, and one out of every three resident students took advantage of that allowance. "Even though the University waived the surcharge for private rooms, about 280 of our students still wanted to live as roommates," according to residence life director Andrew Weingarten. "Nearly all that group are first-year students, which I think speaks to the isolation and loneliness that many of us are suffering. These students are generally 18-year-olds who sat at home for the past 10 months. They really want a somewhat-close-to-normal first year experience. Even with online courses, to-go dining, and other adjustments these students now have a roommate, a friend, someone to talk to at night. It's a beautiful thing."
So how can longtime friends or complete strangers deal with living in close proximity and staying safe and healthy on the UP campus or in off-campus housing?
We spoke with Dr. Carol Dell’Oliver, Health & Counseling Center director, to find out what she recommends students do to keep the lines of communication open, especially roommates, during this challenging time.
“Whether you’re living on campus or off campus, the people you’re living with may have different values around COVID safety guidelines,” Dell’Oliver says. “The issue we deal with is that a lot of our students are pretty polite, and they don’t want to engage in a heated conversation with someone they’ve just met and are going to be living with. Agreeing to disagree or just going along with uncomfortable situations aren’t workable solutions. We need to think about the next three months as a time when we’re being extra-careful when it comes to our COVID guidelines, so it’s helpful to learn some ways that you can communicate with your roommate or housemate to address the issues proactively. People may have their own personal values or models about COVID safety, but they may not be compatible with the health of other people in public settings. In addition to our personal health, we need to think about the health of others now.”
Dell’Oliver has some strategies that can help initiate roommate conversations that need to happen:
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