“Suitcase schools” nationwide are defined by vacant campuses, Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, as students head home for the weekend. The majority of these schools have higher in-state student populations, making it easier for individuals to make the trek home, according to the NY Times.
According to St. Thomas Residence Life, 80% of St. Thomas students are from Minnesota, which begs the question: Is St. Thomas a “suitcase school?”
Aaron Macke, the associate dean of students and director of Residence Life, said he does not think St. Thomas is a suitcase school.
“There are anywhere from 15% to 20% (of first-years) that go home three to four weekends a month,” Macke said. “It’s not a suitcase campus because if you are under 20%, that’s not even anywhere near.”
Junior Lindsay Pidde was a part of this percentage during her first year of college.
“I go home about every other weekend, but in the past two years, probably every weekend,” Pidde said.
Macke said many students will go home for a home-cooked meal, to see the family pet or to get separation from their roommates. Pidde can attest to all three of these.
“I did not have a good relationship with my roommate freshman year, so it was good to get out of that,” Pidde said.
“Having your own space, if you have a good relationship with your family, going and spending time with them, free food, and emotional support animals” were also all pros of going home for Pidde.
While Macke says St. Thomas is not a suitcase school, he doesn’t think the 15% to 20% going home every weekend is a small number either.
“If you’ve got a first-year class of 1,500 to 1,600 students, that’s 300 students that are going home,” Macke said. “You can see students grabbing their laundry on a Friday afternoon or going out and getting in a car with their parent or sibling and driving away, so there is definitely that you can see. There is a volume there.”
There will always be students leaving campus on the weekends, but St. Thomas Residence Life tries to create a welcoming environment to help people want to stay. One of the ways Residence Life has worked on this is through the implementation of a two-year residency requirement.
“It is from a lot of research and data, best practices, colleges, universities that say students who are living on campus are more connected to each other and more connected to the institution to the faculty,” Macke said. “Most of our private Catholic, regional, national peers have two-year campus living requirements, so we moved in that direction.”
Campus Life has also made an effort to increase the weekend events on campus and notifications of them.
“As you can see on Tommie Link and what Campus Life sends out, there’s always something,” Macke said. “In fact, there’s a lot of options. It’s just whether or not any of those are connecting with the students or there’s something big enough that feels like everyone needs to be here for it.”
Pidde receives notifications about on-campus events but said that there is a stigma around attending them.
“I think St. Thomas tries with their events during the weekends and their social media posts,” Pidde said. “I feel like they try to get people to go to those, but nobody really does because it’s embarrassing to go to events made by the school because we’re ‘too old’ for that apparently, even though I’m paying for the events.”
Macke says Campus and Residence Life will continue to add events and facilities that interest and excite everyone.
“We’re definitely just seeing and feeling and experiencing from our students a much more satisfaction around living on campus,” Macke said. “I think we are definitely moving in the right direction.”
Cecilia Wallace can be reached at wall1238@stthomas.edu.