Student Housing Unveils Improvements

Accord­ing to the fall 2008 sur­vey, 13 per­cent of the stu­dents reported being dis­sat­is­fied with their over­all UNM hous­ing experience. Since fall 2008, Res­i­dence Life and Stu­dent Hous­ing has spent $11.8 mil­lion to improve stu­dent housing.

“While sur­vey results show that the major­ity of stu­dent res­i­dents are sat­is­fied, we want to insure that we sur­pass all stu­dents’ expec­ta­tions,” said Patrick Call, direc­tor of Res­i­dence Life and Stu­dent Housing.

Dur­ing sum­mer 2009, efforts were on build­ing ren­o­va­tions, upgrades and land­scap­ing ini­tia­tives specif­i­cally selected to enhance safety and increase stu­dent satisfaction. 

Aside from sig­nif­i­cant ren­o­va­tions to the Stu­dent Res­i­dence Cen­ter (SRC) apart­ments, Hokona Hall received bath­room fix­ture, faucet, counter-top and sink upgrades, and plans for a sec­ond laun­dry is in the works.   

Hokona Hall also received a com­plete room and hall­way ren­o­va­tion, with an updated fire safety sys­tem instal­la­tion this summer.  

“Stu­dents won’t rec­og­nize Hokona this year, because every­thing inside is new,” Call said.

This sum­mer, Res­i­dence Life and Stu­dent Hous­ing com­pleted a $3 mil­lion ren­o­va­tion project replac­ing out­dated heat­ing and air-conditioning units and ven­ti­la­tion sys­tems in the SRC apartments. 

“We also repaved and restriped Stu­dent Fam­ily Hous­ing park­ing lots and repaired bas­ket­ball courts on south cam­pus,” Call said.

The goal of all improve­ments is to increase the stu­dents’ aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment and reten­tion at the university. 

“We want our res­i­dents to be excited about liv­ing on cam­pus,” Call said.  “By improv­ing the qual­ity of our facil­i­ties and by mak­ing them more visu­ally appeal­ing, we are actively serv­ing and pro­mot­ing stu­dent com­fort and sat­is­fac­tion in our on-campus res­i­den­tial community.”