By Kelly Lewis
Winners of the housing contest hosted by the Office of Residence Life will be announced on April
1, hopefully, this is not part of an April Fool’s day joke.
The Office announced three separate contests on March 15 for each class: the class of 2022, 2023, and 2024. To enter the contest, students must follow the Instagram account @hillreslife and comment on their class year post by tagging two of their classmates to enter the contest.
This is the first time the Office of Residence Life is holding a contest to provide one group of students per class year their choice of housing assignment.
Director of Residence Life Kristen Pierce said winners will be selected on April 1, and be notified via their Stonehill email accounts.
“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,” 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 is only open to students with an Instagram account. There is 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 March 21, each Instagram post has over 200 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 the Instagram page to enter the contest:
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