NACOGDOCHES, Texas — Stephen F. Austin State University is full of history.
One of the many buildings on campus with a story is Hall 20, the first co-ed dorm at SFA that opened in 1986. Recently, students found out that at the end of the semester, it’s closing its doors and they'll have to move all their belongings elsewhere.
Currently, there are 270 students living in Hall 20 that are now working on living arrangements for next semester. Cooper Jones is one of them.
"I’m not super excited about it, because it’s just a pain. I have to have my mom come down and help take everything up versus just leaving it in my room like last year," Jones said.
While he’s keeping a positive attitude about it, he knows he’s not alone in his frustrations.
"A few of my friends are trying to scramble pretty hard to find room. People are pretty upset about it but they’re also just kind of taking what they’re given because at the end of the day it’s the university and there’s not much we can do," Jones said.
SFA Executive Director of University Marketing and Communications Korbin Pate said he understands the delivery of the news may have seemed sudden.
"On Oct. 8, we sent out the original communication to our students. I’ll be the first to tell you and acknowledge, the execution and the roll-out of that process was not our best effort," Pate said.
Despite the rumors of safety concerns in the dorm, Pate wants everyone to know the real reason for the closure of Hall 20 is just part of a campus master plan for a growing university.
"This freshman class is one of our largest in five years, so as we anticipate more students coming to campus, we opened up four different areas on campus that were taken offline during COVID," Pate said.
To try to help make things right, he said the university is doing things like honoring the rate of Hall 20 regardless of the dorm students move into, providing move-in assistance and allowing priority selection for their dorm next semester.
"We always want to make sure students have a great experience. So rolling that out in the middle of midterms and causing anxiety not only for our students but for our parents, the execution was not some of our best efforts and we recognize that," Pate said.
Moving forward, the university is ready to continue working with students to help them feel at home.
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