The last of the students living in the Holmes Student Center have moved into the residence halls.

Although some students still live in floor lounges, none remain in the student center.

“We’re happy to say that the Holmes Student Center has been cleared for about two weeks now,” said Willard Draper, director of residential life.

Student Housing and Dining Services purposely overbooks spaces in the residence halls, which means that early in the year, students must live in the HSC or in floor lounges.

Later in the school year, more rooms become available and students move out of the temporary spaces.

“People kind of forget that we have over 5,000 people,” Draper said. “That’s a small town. So we do lose a few students each year for all kinds of reasons. We get, probably, our largest group from people who say they’re coming and then, ultimately, don’t show up.”

Rooms open up for other reasons, too.

“We get people who drop out, or don’t get financial aid or get ill,” Draper said. “There are all kinds of reasons why people don’t stay with us.”

A little over 50 students still call a floor lounge their home. But by 2003, that is expected to change.

“Those people living in the floor lounges will receive permanent assignments before they leave for winter break,” said Melodie Thomas, coordinator of assignments and contracts for SHDS.

Once students are moved into a floor lounge, they have the option to stay for a while.

“Once it got past three or four weeks, we’re just allowing them to stay in those lounges until spring semester,” Thomas said.

Getting students out of the HSC Hotel was the university’s priority.

“The last ones that were living in the hotel we actually moved into the floor lounges, the ones that we couldn’t find permanent spaces for,” Thomas said.

SHDS tries to get students into their preferred room type, but sometimes space is not available.

“We would look, and if a space matched whatever somebody had originally asked for, if we could give them their preferences, we certainly did,” Thomas said.

Draper claimed that overbooking space in the residence halls has a positive effect for all on-campus students.

“That’s good news for students because the reason we do that kind of loading is we’re able to keep our capacity number high, and that certainly keeps room and board costs down,” Draper said.