Notre Dame will be able to provide on-campus housing to the current Gateway 9.0 cohort upon their transfer to Notre Dame in the fall semester, the Office of Residential Life announced in an email to Gateway students Monday morning.
“We are delighted to share with you that, due to the tremendous efforts of many around the University, we are now able to provide on-campus housing to Gateway 9.0 students who would like to live in a residence hall community next fall,” the email said.
The announcement comes after last fall’s news that on-campus housing would not be a guarantee for Gateway students or any transfer students.
The email described intense efforts by the University to solve an on-campus housing shortage. Especially important in these efforts, the email mentioned, was “investing heavily in resources to create additional opportunities for Notre Dame students to study abroad in the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters.”
Addressing Gateway students’ concerns
After announcing the update, the email addressed several expected questions and concerns, the first being “Why did you communicate a different message to us in October?”In response, the email explained the prospects for fully available on-campus Gateway housing in the fall of 2021 were “highly unlikely,” which led the University to send the October email encouraging students to seek off-campus housing.
With University efforts to create availability in on-campus housing, however, the projection soon began to change.
“It was only due to a substantial investment and movement on the part of many University offices and resources that we have been able to create the space needed to provide housing to Gateway 9.0 students,” the email read.
According to the email, the update’s timing was linked to study abroad numbers for next year.
“We would not know whether our attempts to intervene would be successful until we had a better sense of student study abroad acceptances for next fall and spring, as well as a variety of other factors,” the email read.
Addressing Gateway students who already signed a lease for off-campus housing next year, the email said students will “continue to have the option to live off-campus next year, with the two semesters counting toward their on-campus residency requirement, and the understanding that they will receive an on-campus assignment in 2023-2024 to fulfill the final two semesters of the residency requirement.”
Finally, the email detailed the housing application process for the fall.
“Upon fulfillment of the necessary requirements to gain acceptance into Notre Dame’s sophomore class, Gateway students will apply for housing using the Waitlist housing application in the Home Under the Dome housing portal,” the email read.
The email clarified, however, that “although [Gateway 9.0 students] will complete a ‘waitlist’ application, all Gateway 9.0 students who complete the application by July 5 will receive a housing assignment.”
The email concluded with an apology to the students for the stress of the housing situation.
“We are sorry for the stresses of the last several months, but we believed it was important to communicate clearly about the housing situation, especially when early attempts to address the housing capacity issues did not look promising,” the email read.
