Gabaldon Hall and Aspen Crossing Learning Community will turn into Sophomore Year Experience (SYE) residence halls in the fall of 2009.

Michael Butcher, the coordinator of operations for Residence Life, said the dorms will help sophomores because the hall staff and hall connections will be customized for them. 

SYE halls will have programs and activities designed to address the needs of sophomore students.  

“For freshmen, we would recommend them to the sophomore connection halls, because it would help them make that transition from freshman to sophomore,” Butcher said. “Aspen Crossing and Gabaldon Hall are going to be tailored to the sophomore experience.”

Programs such as a Majors Fair, a Career Building Expo, programming efforts, student outreach and connections to critical resources will address specific needs of sophomore students. 

Associate Housing Director Brian Ward said non-freshman students who have reapplied to Gabaldon will still have events and programs to help them, even though the dorms will turn into SYE halls.

“The halls will most likely not be 100 percent sophomores,” Ward said. “We wanted to be sensitive to current residents that wanted to reapply to their same room in Gabaldon Hall.”

The idea of turning Aspen Crossing and Gabaldon into SYE halls is not welcomed by all students. 

Kelci Meguro, a biology major who is moving out of Gabaldon next year, said although she likes the idea of sophomore dorms, she wishes Gabaldon were not affected. 

“I am not going to be a sophomore next year, and I really don’t want to live with sophomores, so I decided to move out,” Meguro said. “More than likely, they are going to turn (Gabaldon) into a dry dorm, and that sucks. But at the same time, it will help sophomores and the problems that come up when they are sophomores.”

Students who already live in Gabaldon may reapply for the 2009-10 year.

Ward said although the dorms will still help the students living there now, Residence Life hopes by the 2010-11 year to have Gabaldon catering mostly to sophomores.

“Sophomore-year programming is not a new concept at NAU,” Ward said. “Certain halls, such as Gabaldon, have always had a large percent of sophomores, so their programming efforts address those needs.”

First used in 2008, Aspen Crossing is a suite-style dorm designed to help academically-focused students. For students to live in Aspen Crossing, they must maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher for the fall semester, complete 30 to 45 units by the end of the 2009 spring semester, agree to the substance-free policy and observe the quiet environment of the hall.

Built in 1984, Gabaldon is a co-ed suite-style building and is able to house 586 students.

“What we’re doing now is going to help the sophomores,” Butcher said. “We are trying to get them to look at dorms that are different from the ones they had by having them look at suite-style dorms.”