The Student Housing Matters blog explores ideas with leaders in higher education and the student housing profession. This is the place to find stories from those who have worked in the field for many years, podcast interviews, and videos about relevant topics in the student housing world.

It’s about matters relating to on-campus student housing, as well as why quality on-campus student housing really matters. We want this blog to serve as a forum for sharing ideas and insights about how your on-campus student housing can do things beyond simply housing students. How it can be used as a more powerful tool to recruit and retain students on your campus. We look forward to you joining us in the conversation.

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Posts by: Alton Irwin

Podcast

Podcast | Solving The Resident Package Delivery Problem

December 9, 2016

Va’Shajn Parr, Director of the on-campus communities of University Village and the Quad at CSU San Marcos, spoke with us about the service he is using to solve the unnecessarily complicated issue of resident package delivery.  They are utilizing a system called Parcel Pending to help secure and then notify students when they have packages…

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Podcast

Podcast | How We Got To COCM – Will Davenport and Alton Irwin

November 17, 2016

Chief Operating Officer of COCM, Will Davenport and Chief Marketing Officer, Alton Irwin sat down with us to talk about how they got into the student housing world and then to COCM. They also share what they believe makes COCM and its leadership unique. This is a special video podcast version of a series we’ve…

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Podcast

Podcast | How We Got To COCM – Doug Brown and Sandy Hill

October 26, 2016

President of COCM, Doug Brown and Executive Vice President, Sandy Hill sat down with us to talk about how they got into the student housing world and then to COCM. The conversation winds through their background, funny stories they’ve had while traveling, and where they see the future of COCM. This is a special video…

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Employee Spotlight – Abreonia Webster

October 18, 2016

We’re rolling out a new feature that we’ll be doing from time to time, just to introduce you some of the awesome people we have here at COCM.  You’ve seen employee spotlights before, so you know that they’re designed to be a quick way to get to know a person professionally and personally.  Today, we’d…

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Blog

Winners of the Move-In Photo Contest!

September 27, 2016

We wanted to announce the winners of the 2016 move-in photo contest!  This was a seriously tough task with all of the submissions we had.  So we went with four that really displayed the spirit of great housing staffs during this crazy time.  They were all photos anyone reading this blog can relate to, laugh…

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13 Coolest College Towns

September 20, 2016

Now that we are back into the swing of fall with move-ins complete, this article from Jetsetter on the “13 Coolest College Towns” throws a different light on some of our favorite college towns (including one of my favorites – Chapel Hill!!)  

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Podcast

Podcast | Utilizing Big Data To Improve Student Success

August 31, 2016

Technology in higher ed is something we’ve not touched on many times on the podcast.  Today we reverse that trend!  Jack Suess, the Vice President of Information Technology and CIO of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, joined us to talk about what they’re doing with “Big Data” on that campus, and how they’re using…

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Blog

City College of New York Ranks Among Top 1.2% Schools Globally

August 30, 2016

COCM is always proud to highlight the successes of our partner institutions. This week, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked The City College of New York in the top 1.2% of more than 25,000 institutions around the world. “The City College of New York, whose student population hails from more than 150 nations, ranks…

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Podcast

Podcast | How I Got Into Student Housing – Joe Cantona

August 11, 2016

Joe Cantona is a Site Operations Specialist for COCM.  In his role, he has worked on site at almost every one of COCM’s sites across the country, performing tasks from opening sites for the first time, to filling the gap while critical staff when they are on leave. He joined us for the latest installment of…

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COCM’s Move-In Photo Contest is Back!

August 9, 2016

COCM is excited to announce the start of our annual move-in photo contest! Since move-in season is so spread out across the country, we are going to be accepting submissions over the course of the whole move-in season. And on September 16, we’ll select 4 of the top photos to win $100 Amazon gift cards. We…

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