ETSU estimates 20 to 30 students housed in a hotel on move-in day

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — East Tennessee State University (ETSU) has reserved a block of the Carnegie Hotel for students to move into before the start of the school year.

About 1,300 first years spent the morning and part of the afternoon moving into their dorm rooms at ETSU. One of those students was Samantha Algiere, who plans to study nursing.

“It’s very exciting, very nerve racking,” said Algiere. “I’m just excited to start a new chapter in my life.”

Algiere is a part of the biggest class on campus at ETSU. By next week, about 3,400 students will be on campus.

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With increased rates of enrollment in the past few years, ETSU has struggled to provide the housing capacity for the demand, turning to alternatives like hotels.

Algiere knew she didn’t want to be in that situation.

“We looked through all the dorms and they were all so amazing. And we were just like ‘I gotta get into a dorm.'”

The university has a block of rooms reserved in the Carnegie Hotel.

“We’ll have probably about 20 to 30 students in a hotel across the street,” said ETSU Vice President of Student Life and Enrollment Joe Sherlin. “And we’ll be able to work those students into vacancies over the first couple of weeks.”

The hotel arrangement is overflow housing for students. Sherlin said he believes the university will be able to move students out of that arrangement faster than in years past thanks to efforts to increase current housing such as adding 400 additional living options at Buc Ridge Apartments and elsewhere on campus.

“We had about 100 students in hotels for several weeks,” said Sherlin. “It took us well into the semester and we had students in a number of hotels, but with that capacity, we’re not going to need to do that this year.”

Bunk beds have been put in Buc Ridge Apartments, and rooms intended for triples are being used as designed.

Student move-in continues throughout the week. The number of students staying in hotel rooms is very flexible right now because it depends on the total number of students who show up to move in, Sherlin said.

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