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

Making the Recruitment Process a Positive and Effective Experience

March 11, 2014

Recruitment is such an exciting time. We are given the opportunity to look at our team, see how we’ve grown, and find new members to bring into the fold. While recruitment has never been my primary job, I have always enjoyed the process. It can also be a stressful experience…student affairs professional recruitment tends to…

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Seeking Employment? We have some great advice for your search!

March 7, 2014

Job searching is an exciting and stressful experience. Here are some tips to consider on your journey. The goal is not to get hired but find a “work home.” Approach your job search not with the attitude of getting hired but choosing your next “work home.” We spend at least 40 hours (usually more) of our week in…

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Perspectives – Gen Z and Millennials

March 3, 2014

I found the blog post last week and article about Generations Z to be an interesting view on the incoming generation and what we, as Student Housing administrators, could come to expect from our soon to be residents.  But it also brought to mind an article published in Psychology Today, that I enjoy and which I check…

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Gen Z is here!

February 26, 2014

Here at Student Housing Matters, we’ve talked a lot over the last year or so about the Millennials. Trisha Wells, a regular blogger for SHM, wrote a six part series on the Millennial generation, called “I Learned to Supervise Millennials While Taking Piano Lessons.”  The series is a great “how to” guide for supervisors working with…

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Is Good “Customer Service” Creating Problems?

February 19, 2014

I recently read a blog post by Tim St. John (@timstjohn)that resonated with me, as it likely will with you if you work with students on any level.  His blog post entitled The “Customer” Service Paradox in Higher Education caught my attention, as Student Housing Matters has published at least two other blogs about this long discussed/ debated topic…

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Podcast

How Decreasing Government Funding is Changing Higher Education

February 11, 2014

In a time where so many federal issues are clamoring for more and more funding, higher education’s piece of the pie is getting smaller and smaller. Marshall University President, Stephen Kopp spoke with us about the issue of decreasing government funding for higher education institutions and how they’ll likely have to deal with it in…

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What’s Going On in the Off-Campus Student Housing Market?

January 31, 2014

We thought it would be interesting to take a look at the final fall 2013 leasing results of the off-campus student apartment communities owned by the publicly traded student housing Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS). Knowing the market conditions off-campus – specifically occupancy levels and rental rate increases — is beneficial for anyone involved with…

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Better Understanding Your International Students

January 23, 2014

Institutions across the US have increased the number of international students on their campuses. While these students are welcomed through admission, it is important for faculty and staff to remember that international students have needs both similar to and different from their American student counterparts. When I work with international students, I try to think…

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Podcast

Part 1 – The State of On-Campus Housing: Utilizing Student Housing for Recruiting, Retention & Enrollment Management

January 17, 2014

This past November, Student Housing Business brought together leaders from higher education, as well as the student housing industry, for the inaugural InterFace Student Housing Conference in Orlando. A wide variety of topics salient to student housing were discussed -from Finance to Architectural Design Trends to Residence Hall Renovations and Technology. In case you weren’t able to…

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A CUNY Graduation Strategy Worth Sharing

January 10, 2014

Student Housing Matters is always eager to share higher-ed success stories with our readers because they are the essence of what this field of focus represents.  This article (linked below) published in the New York Times yesterday is a great example of a university seeing a challenge many of its students were (and still are)…

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Is your name on the list?

January 2, 2014

Ten colleges and universities who are getting creative and having fun on Twitter. In higher education, our consumers (students) are very tech savvy and high users of social media – this is not news to anyone. What is interesting however, is how many colleges/universities haven’t quite figured out how to successfully engage students (and alums)…

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