By Leanne Vastbinder, Staff Writer
The Department of Residence Life has decided not to make Fugate Hall a 21-and-over residence hall after all.
In March of 2018, Residence Life announced that it was seriously considering whether or not to raise the minimum age requirement in Fugate Hall next year from its current require-ment of junior standing and above to make it a strictly 21 years-of-age and up residence hall.
Fugate Hall is unique in that it is the only building on campus that allows alcohol, as well as the only residence hall that does not require its residents to purchase a meal plan.
The reasoning behind the 21-and-over age requirement for Fugate, Mudloff said, would have been to make it easier to determine which residents could have alcohol in their rooms and which couldn’t.
“We were thinking about doing it to make things a little easier on policy enforcement. The big driving force behind maybe making the change was to think how we can make this easier on the RA’s to figure out problems over there,” Mudloff said.
As deliberations conclude this year, however, Residence Life has decided that there are not enough reasons to constitute a change and has opted to keep the requirement the same.
“We decided in the long run that right now there’s nothing really wrong with it. Why should we go about changing it?” Mudloff said.
Residence Life will, however, be implementing a few new additions for on-campus residents in the fall 2019.
Merlini Hall will re-open as a pet-friendly living space, allowing students to bring their dog or cat to live in their dorm room.
Pets must be approved by Residence Life prior to bringing them on campus in the fall.
Newman is also looking at providing theme-based living communities for students. These communities include honors, pre-med biology, nursing, and faith-based themes.
PHOTO: FUGATE HALL will not enforce the previously proposed 21-and-up rule for the 2019-2020 school year. Courtesy photo, Newman Advancement
