By Jueun Choi and Xiran Liu
The Housing and Residence Life Team (HRL) will no longer provide summer storage for residents in the HBKU residence halls (Shamali and Janoubi). As the academic year ends, residents of HBKU Housing who plan to travel during the summer break will have to find ways to store their personal belongings off campus.
The lack of space and staff in the current dorms are the reasons behind the new policy, said Matthew Nelson, Ed.D, the assistant director for Housing and Residence Life (HRL). “We have adjusted the policy as we have moved into the new facilities and in light of staffing levels. Currently we do not have enough staff to manage the process efficiently and effectively,” he said.
Summer storage was free over the last two summers, but this has now changed due to “expansion and movement,” according to Nelson.
Storage was free in summer 2013, when residents moved from the old dormitories to the new Shamali complex, and also in 2014, when male residents moved to the new Janoubi complex.
“Students were notified that this was a one-time offer and that storage may be limited or not provided in the future,” said Nelson. This summer, students have no access to storage at all.
Nelson said that emails regarding this policy change were sent out to inform students through the past year.
However, some residents said they were not informed at all. Yujun Dong, a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar said, “I got tons of HRL emails but not one regarding any storage problem,” Dong said.
Some residents in QF Housing expressed their frustration about the new policy. Eun Ah Rhee, a communication junior student at Northwestern University in Qatar thinks this policy is unacceptable. “This new policy completely disregards the international students, which is ironic because most of the students in the housing are international,” said Rhee.
Muhammad Faizan Shakir, a community development advisor (CDA) and a student resident gave a possible explanation of the new policy, “Summer housing is billed separately and that is why, HRL requires everyone to clean out their rooms since that space could be used by someone else, regardless of whether the residents move back into the same room or not.”
Nelson suggested other storage options for residents. “They can pay the summer housing rate and the leave their items in their rooms. They can also leave the things with friends over the summer. Or they can arrange for storage off campus with a company in Doha. They could send their belongings home too,” he said.
He also said residents should pay more attention to the housing contract during application.
“In 2012-2013 the contract stated that ‘Limited storage space is available throughout the year.’ For this year, 2014-2015, the contract reads, ‘Housing and Residence Life does not guarantee storage,’” Nelson said.
