Marywood’s housing function has been outsourced to Capstone On-Campus Management (COCM), which university officials say will help enhance the housing process through a collaboration with the existing housing department.

According to its website, COCM has worked with many colleges around the United States of varying sizes.

Kevin Schaudt, an interim COCM employee who previously worked with COCM for 12 years, is helping the housing department during the outsourcing process. Schaudt explained COCM’s mission at Marywood.

“They’re housing experts with college universities across the country. The main mission is to enhance operations and administration so we can provide better service to students,” said Schaudt.

Schaudt stated COCM will not take over the housing department, but rather partner with and support the University’s existing department.

Erica Armstrong, the assistant director of Housing and Residence Life, seems optimistic about this collaboration.

“I think a lot of the benefits of COCM coming in is that they have a multitude of resources that are going to streamline and modernize our department, and for a small school, I don’t think we have the resources without somebody like COCM coming in,” said Armstrong.

One goal of COCM and the Housing and Residence Life Office is to make the application process more user-friendly. They are reviewing the housing selection applications to make them shorter and more accessible to students. According to Schaudt, the incoming student application is about 10 pages long and some of the information has been asked on different forms.

This semester, Immaculata and Bethany halls, which had not housed students for some years, were opened to students. However, they were not opened up to students because of a “capacity problem.” Schaudt said that there were errors made in placement and judgment of space and they hope that they can plan ahead and use their resources better.

Prior to adding Immaculata and Bethany, Marywood offered resident students four options for housing, including Regina Hall, Madonna Hall, Loughran Hall and the Woodland Apartments.

COCM is working with different campus departments such as enrollment services not only to possibly merge some applications but to streamline the overall process. Schaudt believes that the goal is to make the process more efficient, transparent, cleaner and easier for students and parents to navigate. The firm also hopes to release the housing application earlier. Discussion and changes to the application are in process, and could potentially help retention efforts.

Armstrong believes that a lot of offices are more focused on supporting students and creating an atmosphere students want to stay in.

“I do think there is a bigger number of upperclassmen that stay on campus this year and probably moving forward because they really enjoy being connected to campus,” added Armstrong.

Junior Musical Theatre major Melissa Scrima resides in Immaculata Hall, having received that notification only a few weeks before move-in day for the 2023-2024 school year. Her assignment changed multiple times before Immaculata Hall became the final decision by housing officials.

Scrima expressed mixed emotions about her housing placement.

“I was excited because I had a lot of different housing placements beforehand, but I was a little nervous because of the communal bathrooms. It did turn out better than I expected though,” she said.

Despite her initial hesitation about Immaculata, Scrima said she would consider living there again.

“The sooner students, especially new students, are assigned a room, the more committed they are to the college, the more excited they are about coming here compared to waiting until late summer to find that out,” explained Schaudt.

The housing department is also going through some personnel changes under the new arrangement.

The director of housing position is currently vacant and both Armstrong and Schaudt are working to find a new candidate to fill the post. They hope to announce the new director soon. The office will ultimately be fully staffed with a new director and an operations coordinator, with Armstrong continuing as the assistant director.

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