No room for two

by Mallory Higgins

Senior Justin Kinkel-Schuster thinks being a married and acollege student has many benefits.

“Being married and in college is nice,” Kinkel-Schuster said. “Ilive in a loving, supportive environment with the person I love atall times. Also, it is a great environment to study in.”

Married students can live in campus housing, but there is solittle demand for it that the college has never established amarried-housing hall at Simpson.

That means that couples like Kinkel-Schuster and his wife,senior Stephanie Beckley-Schuster, may have to look off campus fora place to live.

Kinkel-Schuster his wife applied to live in a two-personapartment last spring.

“The residence life staff was very supportive of our decision toapply to live in a two-person apartment last spring,”Kinkel-Schuster said. “We went through the whole process ofapplying, but in the end our lotto numbers were not high enough tomake the cut. So we then decided to live off campus.”

According to Stephanie Krauth, associate director of students,students may not be aware that married housing is available oncampus.

“The residence life staff is very open to a married coupleapplying to live on campus in a two-person apartment,” Krauth said.”There just has not been a need or desire for specific housing formarried couples. We just haven’t heard enough feedback fromstudents who think we should have it.”

There are no rules against a married couple applying for anapartment, Krauth said.

“If the need is there for married couple housing, then we wantto accommodate them,” Krauth said. “There just have been noquestions about it. Last year was the first time a couple appliedto live on campus, and the only reason they didn’t get it wasbecause their lotto numbers were not high enough.”

Mandy Fox, director of housing, said the college wants to doanything it can to help married students live on campus.

“We want to accommodate everyone, and we want to keep people oncampus,” Fox said. “If students have any questions about on-campusliving for married couples, e-mail residence life. We are veryinterested in knowing what’s going on.”

Krauth said there are many Simpson-owned homes rented out tofaculty that could possibly be rented by married student if thereis room.

Junior Rachel (Shea) Parker said that even if there was anopportunity to live on campus with her husband, she would not.

“I think one of the benefits to being married and a student isthat you do get to live off campus,” Parker said.

Even though Parker likes living off campus, there are somedrawbacks about it.

“Living off campus does mean that you are out of the loop whenit comes to things going on at Simpson,” Parker said. “My husbandand I live across town so I am not going to drive back to campusjust to see a speaker or do something on campus.”