This year, AU students can use the university's off-campus housing Web service to search for alternative housing.
Housing and Dining Programs launched the service Web site June 15 and contracted with student housing company Off Campus Partners Inc. to administer the Web site, according to Chris Moody, executive director of Housing and Dining Programs.
Housing and Dining records indicate that as of last week, 734 students created accounts for viewing property posts and exchanged 676 e-mails with posted properties and complexes. The Web site received more than 11,000 hits between June 15 and July 31.
Moody said he felt it was important to assist students in finding off-campus housing.
"It was important for us to not only provide apartment and housing postings, but to also provide ways for students to communicate with each other via message boards about roommate matching and posting," Moody said. "Off Campus Partners Inc. is responsible for recruiting new leasing sites and independent postings."
The site would help transfer, graduate and law students, President Neil Kerwin said in an e-mail in August.
Sabyasachi Senapati used the Web service in his off-campus housing search last summer, said the graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences.
"It's like a small version of Craigslist," Senapati said. "The good thing is you get student roommates; I used it two or three times to post my own ads."
Part of Housing and Dining Programs' decision to contract with Off Campus Partners Inc. was that the company offered to populate the Web site with postings from other schools in the area, a service not offered by many other student housing companies, Moody said. AU students can currently view off-campus housing Web site postings from students at George Washington University, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College as per the contract with Off Campus Partners Inc. The company hopes to continue adding other universities to its service in order to expand the number of housing options for AU students.
Chris Stelmarski, a junior in SPA, arranged his off-campus housing arrangements without using the new Housing and Dining Programs service.
"I wish I would have known there is such a site," Stelmarski said. "This Web site will help connect people."
The improvement of off-campus housing options for AU students was an initiative of former Student Government President Ashley Mushnick, who worked with Housing and Dining last year to remedy the issue and create the Web service, The Eagle previously reported.
Housing and Dining Programs' off-campus housing Web service can be accessed at www.american.edu/offcampushousing.
