By Kelly Lewis
It turns out the housing contest hosted by the Office of Residence Life was not part of an April’s Fool’s day joke.
Winners of the raffle were announced on the @hillreslife Instagram page on Thursday, April 1. The winner for the class of 2022 is Tory Lindberg, class of 2023 is Bridget McCabe, and class of 2024 is Mikey Patacsil.
Patacsil said he was amazed and happy when he found out the good news.
“I received a call from RD Devin from Pilgrim Heights when I was walking to my Bio Lab class on Thursday,” Patacsil said.
He said he is going to live in O’hara Village next year with his friends.
McCabe said she plans to live in the Junior Courts next year. She said she was confused when she had a missed call from Stonehill.
“I was really excited to win because my friends and I had been talking about this contest and thinking how cool it would be if we won,” McCabe said. “I called my friends and since it was April fools, they thought I was joking!”
A few weeks ago, on March 15 the Office announced three separate contests for each class. To enter the contest, students had to follow the Instagram account @hillreslife and comment on their class year post by tagging two of their classmates.
This was the first time the Office of Residence Life held a contest to provide one group of students per class year their choice of housing assignment.
“Winners will be able to pick the room or groups of rooms if they are part of a block, of their choice for the fall semester and we will assign them to the space prior to the start of housing selection,” Director of Residence Life Kristen Pierce said.
Pierce said the only restriction is that the winners must choose a residence hall that is designated for their class year. For example, a winner from the class of 2024 cannot choose to live in New Hall, as that is designated for upperclassmen.
She also said the contest was only open to students with an Instagram account. There was no other way to enter the contest.
“The goal is to encourage students to follow us on Instagram to ensure they have access to the most up to date info coming from our office,” Pierce said.
Residence Director for Pilgrim Heights Devin Clemons, who oversees social media for the department, came up with the idea. He said he wanted to increase the office’s Instagram following.
“Everybody is excited about the idea of being able to select their own housing assignment, so it is a win-win for both sides,” Clemons said.
As of April 1, all three Instagram posts combined had over 900 comments!
Clemons said he saw a 60% increase in followers since the post went live on March 15.
“Within just three hours of the posts going live we saw an increase of 310 followers, which is about 100 followers per hour,” Clemons said.
Lauren DeHaan, a sophomore, was one of those new followers.
“I chose to enter the contest because my friends and I all really want to live together next year, and it would be amazing if we were able to avoid the whole housing process and get a for sure place to live,” DeHaan said.
Marisa Silk, a freshman, said she chose to enter the contest because she saw it as an easy way to bypass the regular housing process.
Silk said if she wins she wants to live in either the O’Hara Village Trailers or the Pilgrim Heights Trailers with her friends.
This is the first time the Office of Residence Life has hosted a contest to bypass the housing selection process. Both Pierce and Clemons said they hope to continue this tradition in the future.
“We are excited about this contest and hope to continue it in some form or another as the years go on to make sure we are capturing as many students as we can for the time that Instagram remains a relevant form of communication,” said Clemons.
Follow the link to view the Office of Residence Life’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/hillreslife/?hl=en
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