By Zoe Defazio, Asst. Arts & Entertainment Editor
Manhattan College’s residence life office has made a few changes following the new academic year, including the permittance of external overnight guests — or, guests that are not students — for more than one night.
AJ Goodman, director of residence life, is excited to start moving back to some of the guest policies that were in place before the COVID-19 pandemic. Residence life has considered many factors while making this decision and is overall eager to see students share the campus with their friends and family, Goodman said.
“It is good for our students to be able to have visitors from home and elsewhere come to the college for a night. With this being the first weekend where this is an option, many students have put in requests for overnight, external visitors,” Goodman wrote in an email to The Quadrangle.
Goodman said that since COVID-19 is still a pressing issue amongst the student body and other areas there still needs to be precautions to prevent a spike in cases and keep students, staff and faculty safe.
“At the same time, we do have to balance this with the fact that COVID is still here and still impacting our community,” Goodman wrote. “Most of our students are coming from places with medium to high community spread, which means many of our guests are coming from those same locations.”
Overnight guests can be requested on Roompact. The form will be available Monday morning through Thursday at 4 p.m. All guests must be requested 24 hours in advance. External guests will need to present a government-issued ID when signing in with public safety.
There are some limitations to this new plan, though. According to the Residence Hall Guest Policy statement that has been effective since 2011, hosts and overnight guests must be of the same gender. If the two are opposite genders then the guest must find another host of the same gender to stay with.
Guests may stay for a maximum of three consecutive days and two nights and must leave no later than noon on the third day.
Robert Nolan, a sophomore engineering student, is feeling elated about the reinstated guest policy.
“I am psyched for it,” Nolan said. “Personally, I think that it’s a great thing to allow other people to meet my existing friends at Manhattan College, along with my friends that I’ve made before and after Manhattan College.”
Nolan also noted his personal feelings towards the bridge entrance to Horan Hall and Lee Hall being closed for another year. Many students have also felt a similar way and even created a petition for the bridge to be opened in August of 2021 on Change.org.
“I would love to see the bridge opened. I think it’s an injustice, it’s not okay whatsoever. I personally think that there is no reason to have the bridge [closed]. Why even build the bridge in the first place? Either get rid of the bridge or open the bridge,” Nolan said.
Bengisu Dogan, an international transfer student from Turkey studying in the school of science, also noted the changes regarding the bridge and the guest policy.
“I had my friend over the other day,” Dogan said. “I think being able to have guests over is a great thing. However, I would like to see the bridge be opened. It would be so much easier for me to get to class rather than walking all the way around campus. I think it’s crazy.”