College Suites raises expectations of Viking residents

By: Omsalama Ayoub

Staff Writer

Improvements are being made at the College Suites after almost two years of unsatisfying living conditions.

“We [are] moving forward, and it’s been great,” Mary Christman, Property Manager at College Suites said. “We’re working closely with Hudson Valley,” she said. “We are having town hall meetings where public safety and the judicial coordinator [attend].”

According to Tyler Tschumi, a business administration student who is a current resident, there were problems in the past, but it has calmed down. He thinks that the Suites are under control now and management is doing a great job of making it a fun and respectable place to live.

“With new operations [in similar developments] as with anything, when you start off there’s going to be issues,” Tschumi said.

“We work together to ensure that [student] behavior doesn’t impact the college and vice versa,” Dr. Sandra J. Christman, Hudson Valley Community College’s Coordinator of College Judicial System, said.

The town hall meetings are a reminder that the Hudson Valley Community College student code of conduct applies off campus, and that Vikings are still a part of a larger entity.

According to Tschumi, the Suites is in the real world. It does not have an RA system, so if you get in trouble, you won’t be talking to a Resident Adviser, but a police officer.

“[The Suites] is not a dorm, it’s an apartment,” Tschumi said. “[Management] is not up there to babysit,” he continued. “You’re an adult and you have rules and responsibilities to abide by [in] your lease agreement.”

Christman explained further that students can, in fact, be part of the problem.

An anonymous liberal arts student who lived there in the 2017-2018 academic year agreed.

“I think [a sense of belonging] translates to how you behave on campus and how you behave in these housing developments,” she said. “If you’re disrespecting the place you’re living in, you’re kind of also disrespecting the campus in a way.”

The anonymous student believed that the problem might have been that the housing was new and management wasn’t prepared for the behavior that they were presented with.

“We’re doing everything in our power to ensure that [residents] are safe,” said Christman.

Current resident and business administration student, Jay Strieble, was able to experience the changes made to the College Suites.

“There was [damage in the past] but [management] fixed it. [I don’t see stuff like that anymore], that was mainly last semester,” Strieble said. “I like it there, it’s pretty safe for the most part [and] I’ll probably live there next year.”

“During the time I was there, [the College Suites] was probably at its worst,” the anonymous student said. According to the student, the behavior of the residents was shocking.

“Of course I know college students want to have fun and go a little crazy, but they were damaging the building and being so loud that it was hard to study or sleep,” she said.

After a year of witnessing BB gun shootouts, trash strewn across hallways, nightly visits from police and fire alarms going off in the middle of the night, the anonymous student wondered who was really at fault.

Lauren Sankey, who attended the Aesthetic Science Institute during her time at the Suites, believed that more supervision and enforcement needed to be implemented.

Sankey moved out of her apartment before her one-year lease was up.

“I had over $2,000 in damage to my car [from BB gun assaults] and the Suites would not do anything,” Sankey said. “I could not deal with it anymore and there was extremely poor management, so I decided to move home early, even before I was done with school.”

The two-hour drive between the Aesthetic Science Institute and her house in Massachusetts was not easy, Sankey explained, but necessary.

“I developed severe anxiety and insomnia throughout the 11 months I lived there,” she said. “I was living there in fear, and going home was an outlet and something to look forward to.”

Erin Engleheart, the College Suites Assistant Property Manager, who oversees the mechanics of the development, explained that the concerns are noise complaints more often than not.

“We literally receive noise complaints [about other apartments] celebrating and playing ‘Mario Kart’ [too loud],” Engleheart stated. “Troy PD are not really here unless a room has been called a couple times.”

Edited on 5/2/2019. There is no new management at College Suites.