This year Ramapo began advertising and offering a “super singles” option for Linden Hall, allowing students to pay for the opportunity to have a room to themselves while sharing a bathroom with another single participant.
The “super singles” option for Linden Hall became possible due to vacancies in the residence hall.
“We took this initiative in order to help meet the needs of residents,” said Jesus Santos, Senior Resident Assistant of Linden Hall, “…and since we have room for this experiment, we decided to try it.”
The option for super singles was available on Ramapo’s campus prior to this year and in other residence halls besides Linden Hall, but the Linden Hall super singles advertised this year are a little different than what has been offered by the college in the past.
“If you go on the Ramapo College Residence Life website you will be able to see that Super Singles are offered in every hall other than the first year ones because we, Residence Life, are trying to help freshmen communicate and get to know each other on campus,” Santos states.
Normally, super singles are available to residents whose roommate decides to no longer live in that room. When this happens, Residence Life may place a random resident in that room, the resident can request to have someone moved into the open space or they can essentially buy out the rest of the room, choosing the super single option.
However, the super singles in Linden Hall are different than other super single options because the entire 3rd and 4th floor of Linden Hall are dedicated solely to people who live in the super singles due to vacancies in this residence hall. Also unique to the super singles in Linden Hall is that they are available to commuters, whereas super singles in other residence halls are normally catered towards people already living on campus.
“The option is open to everyone, but we also sent advertisements just to commuter students as well,” said Linda Diaz, director of Residence Life.
As of last week students still had the option of purchasing super singles and final numbers are in the process of being calculated.
“There has been some interest,” said Diaz, “people came and they asked for tours of the rooms and a few commuters even purchased, but it was not as significant as I thought. But with the bad economy that is to be expected.”
Although the offer generated some interest, the super singles are considered to be a temporary option, offered in order to fill vacancies in Linden Hall.
“We were full all the time, so we weren’t able to offer this,” said Linda Diaz. “A lot of schools do it to maximize revenue.”
Nonetheless, many students seem to welcome the idea of having the option of buying more space.
“It’s really an awesome idea,” said Adam Chirlin, a junior who lived in Linden last year. “The rooms are so big for just one person. I wish they had that when I was in Linden!”
“It’s really a pretty good option,” said Lidia Kim, a junior. “I hadn’t heard about them before an RA told me, but you get a large room to yourself and only have to share a bathroom. That’s something not many colleges offer.”
As far as ultimate goals for the super single option, expectations are that it won’t be available for long.
“I hope it’s not an option in the future,” said Linda Diaz. “I hope we are full and have no vacancies. This is really more of a temporary solution.”
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alehaf@ramapo.edu
