NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KTRE) – Stephen F. Austin State University has accepted its largest class yet, surpassing admission records for the university.
However, with an increasing number of students comes a corresponding need for more housing, and SFA’s newfound growing pains have left some students and parents feeling frustrated.
“We’re upset that it occurred in the manner that it occurred,” said Hannah Doffer, the parent of an SFA sophomore. “Our main thing was the lack of communication.”
Doffer says her daughter had a room change with no communication, and they found out only days before her move-in.
She posted on Facebook expressing her concerns and bringing awareness.
“I felt they needed to be aware of this situation, and there were probably other parents and students out there going through the same thing that maybe felt like they were alone, and they needed to know they weren’t alone,” Doffer said.
Doffer said that they’re happy for SFA, and their daughter loves it, but the last few weeks have been extremely stressful.
Korbin Pate, the executive director for marketing and communications, is excited that SFA is growing but recognizes the frustration that parents face.
As of Friday morning, they only had 13 available beds through campus housing.
Pate said they didn’t expect the jump in enrollment to happen so quickly, but they are making active changes to address the issues now.
“We hate that that has happened, but I know that we have learned from a lot of those things and are making adjustments to our process, so it’s going to be improved. Unfortunately, those are just some of those things we have to experience as we grow,” Pate said.
To help, SFA recently got new leadership to address the residents’ life issues.
“We brought in, late in the summer, new leadership to that area, really a task force to be honest with you, to come in and triage that,” he said.
The university is also bringing a plan to build a new $70 million residence hall to the UT Board this spring.
Pate said the university’s applications are already up 10% this year, and that they’re preparing to accommodate the new students.
They will be introducing several new residence halls in addition to the proposal they will bring to UT this spring, in their campus master plan next month.
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