Students in Beaty Towers East might not want to get too comfortable.
To make room for Innovation Academy students coming to UF next semester, students living on floors two through nine in the East Tower will be moved to other residence halls across campus, said Carolynn Komanski, assistant director of housing for administrative services. About 180 students will be affected.
This semester, 46 students living in Beaty East have been moved to other dorms, she said, and the remaining students will be notified of their new room assignments for Spring between Nov. 26 and Jan. 3.
Students will then have two options: They can collect their belongings for the Winter Break period and move into their new assignments Jan. 3, or they can move into their new rooms when they are vacant and clean before housing closes Dec. 14, according to a UF housing email.
The students affected currently live in the overflow housing for Fall 2012. They weren’t told about the move or about Beaty East’s status as overflow before they signed up for housing, Komanski said.
Komanski said the students were assigned to overflow based on the date of their housing applications.
Courtnie Ulrich, an 18-year-old biology freshman, said she would have made another housing choice if she had known she’d have to move.
Ulrich said she was given an option to move out early. Her parents, frustrated by the midsemester move, made the two-hour drive to Gainesville last week to help Ulrich relocate.
Komanski said Beaty East’s overflow housing status is not new, and accommodations are made every year for students housed there to move to permanent spaces later in the semester as needed.
Typically, she said, vacancies become available across campus as students choose not to attend UF or withdraw.
Innovation Academy director Jeff Citty said 334 Innovation Academy students will move into Beaty East in the Spring.
Innovation Academy is part of a university project to help budding entrepreneurs. These students only attend courses on the UF campus in the Spring and Summer and can work, study abroad or do research in the Fall.
Citty said housing provided a creative solution to offer these students contracts for the Spring and Summer semesters within their own living and learning community.
For students currently living in Beaty East, however, this creative solution raises some issues.
Joshua Hayes, an 18-year-old aerospace engineering freshman, said he should have been warned about the move before signing up for housing. Uncertain where he will end up next semester, he is trying to cancel his housing contract and live off campus in the Spring.
“The Innovation Academy is not more important than me,” Hayes said.
