DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Pre-business freshman Chrissy Mihalik washes dishes in her room in Yuma Residence Hall. Mihalik is one of many honors students living with non-honors students in an honors dorm.

Kaibab-Huachuca, Yavapai and Yuma see fewer honors-student applicants

Residence halls normally reserved for honors students have seen a significant influx of non-honors residents this year.

One out of every three honors hall residents is a non-honors student, according to a Residence Life census that counted the total number of honors and non-honors students in Kaibab-Huachuca, Yavapai and Yuma Residence Halls, the three honors halls.

With such high numbers, Residence Life administrators are trying to understand why honors students are no longer filling up the honors residence halls.

Honors students get priority in choosing on-campus honors housing.

Yuma Hall now has 13 non-honors students, compared to only a couple last year. Yavapai has 53 non-honors residents, roughly a fourth of its 205 resident population.

But the biggest surprise for administrators has been Kaibab-Huachuca Residence Hall, where only 173 of the hall's 333 residents are honors students. William Evans, Kaibab-Huachuca hall director, said that there have been some troubles bringing the non-honors and honors students together because sometimes the two groups stereotype each other.

"There seems to be a split between perceived honors and non-honors students," he said. "Getting the students to interact with each other is a big problem. There seems to be a little bit of separation."

In order to address this problem, Evans said that he is "encouraging the RAs to make connections with each other and break down the myth about being honors students and non-honors students."

He hopes that students will "network and build relationships regardless of academic standing so that they can learn from one another."

In the past, Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall was one of three honors dorms. Arizona-Sonora used to be more popular with honors students than Yuma Residence Hall when all the rooms were doubles instead of triples. However, when Arizona-Sonora was converted into triple-occupancy rooms in 1999, the hall became significantly less popular, and fewer honors students have to chosen to live there since, said Jim Van Arsdel, director of Residence Life.

As a result, administrators chose to make Kaibab-Huachuca, a smaller residence hall, into an honors hall last year to attract more honors students.

However, Residence Life's goals were not realized. Kaibab-Huachuca has the largest population of non-honors students of all honors residence halls.

"All the numbers are a surprise because we thought that by shifting honors from Arizona-Sonora to Kaibab, because the sizes are different, we thought we'd fill Kaibab," Arsdel said.

There were so many late cancellations this year that Residence Life had no choice but to accept non-honors students in the halls, Arsdel said.

However, a number of non-honors students were also placed in honors halls by request early last year.

Undecided freshman Clinton Rice, a resident of Yuma, was accepted by the hall because he applied in early October.

"I heard that you didn't have to be an honors student to get in, and I wanted a quiet dorm," he said.

Although the mix of students creates a new dynamic in the residence halls, most students do not seem to mind.

Computer science freshman Mike Harnden, a non-honors resident of Yuma said he was "just kind of ambivalent" about how he feels living in an honors hall. "It's just like being one of the guys."

Heather O'Shea, a pre-business freshman also said she does not mind living in a mixed community of honors and non-honors students.

"It's fine because there are still people who are social and kind of quiet, too," she said.