Town house residence halls popular on campuses

This is not your typical college dorm room.

Instead, the clean, four-person apartment is full of vases of flowers and a few splashes of color in the black-and-white-themed space, with pictures of famous actresses in every bedroom.

"There's an Audrey (Hepburn) and Barbra (Streisand) theme. We love our divas," said SUNY Potsdam junior Joshua R. Redman, one of the apartment's tenants. "We spend an arm and a leg to live here, but it's worth it. There's a lot of places (in town) that look beautiful on the outside, but when you get inside, it's gross."

At Potsdam, it costs students an extra $1,000 in-state or $2,000 out-of-state to live in the on-campus town houses, but they are jumping at the chance to live in a residence hall that gives them independence so near their classrooms.

And it's not just at SUNY Potsdam; it's a trend that's sweeping higher education, according to American School & University, a magazine for education professionals.

"It's not even to say it's the way of the future; it's the way of the current. It does provide the best of both worlds," said Kurt W. Stimeling, dean of students at Clarkson University, Potsdam. "You're still on campus, still a stone's throw from your classes, but you're still away from the perceived scrutiny of the world."

All of the St. Lawrence County colleges have some sort of on-campus apartments, except SUNY Canton. And it will break ground on an 84-suite, 304-bed building in a matter of weeks, according to David M. Gerlach, vice president for institutional advancement. The plan is to have the building finished by August 2011.

On-campus apartments aren't new to the north country; Clarkson has had them since the 1950s, but their purpose has changed. When Clarkson built its three apartment buildings, from the 1950s to the 1970s, they were intended for new staff members, graduate students and married students, Mr. Stimeling said.

Now, they give upperclassmen a chance to learn how to cook on their own and be responsible for cleaning dirty dishes and bathrooms. It helps ease the transition from college to "real life," college officials say.

"There was a need for it. Students came to us and said this was an option they wanted to have," said Macreena A. Doyle, spokeswoman for St. Lawrence University, Canton. "A lot of our students study abroad at least part of their junior year. That transition back to campus is always difficult. They find it particularly difficult after more or less living on their own to come back to a traditional living arrangement."

Most college students start their lives in conventional dorms, sharing a room with a roommate and a communal bathroom with the rest of the hall's residents. But as they get older, they move from those standard rooms to suites, usually two or three shared bedrooms and a bathroom, to an apartment, where they often have their own room, Mr. Stimeling said.

"What we find is that most of them come from homes where they were not sharing a room or were only children," said Eric D. Duchscherer, SUNY Potsdam director of residence life. "We have a pretty unified style of housing. Most of our dorms are double rooms with community common rooms."

The SUNY Potsdam town houses, as they are called, are the newest on-campus apartments in the north country, built only a few years ago. As the student body grew, the college found it needed more rooms. There is a two-year residency requirement and 85 percent of the student body chooses to live on campus, Mr. Duchscherer said.

"When these first opened, I think in 2006, these were a hot commodity," said senior Becky L. Ouderkirk, one of Mr. Redman's roommates. "It wasn't until recently, because of the economy, they had some open spots, so we got to pick ours."

Though living in one of these apartments is more expensive at each of the three universities, some students choose to save money by opting out of a meal plan.

"To me, it's what students expect. They expect quality athletic facilities, they expect quality academic experiences, they expect quality residential-life programming," Mr. Gerlach said. "This is just another option that students can come to us and have that our competitors may not have."