Implementing pet-friendly housing, re-opening Ravine-Narvik Hall, changing the housing lottery and barring sophomores from living in independent housing are just a few of the changes the Office of Residence Life has implemented this academic year.

Associate Dean for Residence Life Stacie Wolbert, who started working for Allegheny in spring 2024, said the changes were motivated by student feedback.
“When I came in, one of the things that I really tried to do was listen to the students,” Wolbert said. “I listened to my RA (resident advisor) staff, I listened to my HRAs (head resident advisors), my interns, residents that I met.”

Wolbert said that when she came to Allegheny, she noticed that residence life seemed “scattered.” In collaboration with Dean for Student Life Trae Yeckley and Dean for Student Success Ian Binnington, Wolbert brought back residence life’s previous “graduated independence program.”

According to Wolbert, the “graduated independence program” is meant to slowly introduce college students to the independence of adulthood. Through programming, RAs provide first-years with more guidance and life skills, while sophomores and upperclassmen are given more career and major advice. In this model, the amount of support students get from their RAs gradually decreases.

The model includes the residence halls where students are allowed to live. Seniors and juniors are allowed to live in independent housing, like North Village, while sophomores are given standard-style dormitory buildings.

“The buildings may change based on the size of the class coming in, but the first-years always live together,” Wolbert said.

Despite the graduated independence program having existed prior to last year’s housing cycle in spring 2025, some sophomores on campus made plans to room with their upperclassmen friends. When they opened their roommate agreement, they were notified they were no longer allowed to live in independent housing, a rule they say wasn’t communicated until the last minute.

“I was actually so mad about this,” Tess Bursic, ’28, said. “I have a really close group of friends that are all upperclassmen, and we were all planning to live together in NVII (North Village II). They needed a fourth, and I was going to be their fourth, and I was really excited about it. We’re all in the same sorority, and we’re all really, really close. I felt like I was basically cut off by ResLife because I couldn’t live with them.”

According to Bursic, when she tried talking to Residence Life, she was “shut down.” She now resides in Ravine-Narvick Hall.

“I like the seclusion,” Bursic said. “It’s nice to be secluded from everyone; that’s just my introvert coming out. It’s just so far from everything.”

During the housing selection last spring, students took notice of a previously closed building being offered for housing: Ravine-Narvick Hall. The residence hall was offline for the 2024-25 school year, but was opened back up for students who stayed on campus during summer 2025 for summer internships, research and on-campus jobs. In tandem with Ravine-Narvick Hall remaining open, Residence Life barred sophomores from living in North Village I and II, a change from previous years. For this academic year, students were also given the option to choose a single in Ravine.

“Ravine was initially closed down because there weren’t a lot of people who were very interested in it,” said Dree Zeiszler, ’26, an intern in the Residence Life Office. “It was almost completely empty. It was all singles and still almost completely empty. The reason it was opened back up this year was actually in response to the volume of requests we got for singles. So, we did decide — instead of forcing everyone without an accommodation to go into a double, we decided to open up Ravine to kind of give people that option since we did see such a high demand for it.”

Ethan Kosco, ’27, said he felt that second-year students were put into isolation being housed in Ravine-Narvick Hall.

“They (residence life) kind of put them (sophomores) in a predicament,” said Kosco, who has several second-year friends living in Ravine. “For the sophomores, I know the ones that live in Ravine feel isolated, almost, just because they’re all the way in that back corner and all their friends are on this side of campus.”
The change was due to availability in buildings, according to Wolbert.

“One of the concerns that had been brought to me was we had juniors and seniors that were not able to get into independent housing because so many rising sophomores had been pulled up by friends,” Wolbert said.

Another change Residence Life made last year was the way in which housing selection numbers are assigned. In previous years, students were randomly assigned a number, which determined their spot in the housing selection queue. Now, students’ housing selection numbers are determined by how fast they fill out their housing agreement. This is a way to place accountability back onto the students, according to Dree Zeiszler, ’26, an intern in the Residence Life Office.

“I know it was random selection of who got what number and that left a lot of room for personal bias and error,” Zeiszler said. “So, we introduced for housing selection for this academic year that your number is based on when you sign it (the housing agreement).”

This year, Residence Life also decided to join colleges around the country in creating an option for pet-friendly housing. In contrast to previous years, students living in these halls will not need to register their pets as emotional support animals. Each residential building, excluding the first-year dormitories, has a hall dedicated to students with animals, according to Wolbert.

Having pet-friendly housing can decrease stress, homesickness and anxiety and increase student engagement, according to the Associated Press.

“I implemented pet-friendly housing as well,” Wolbert said. “And that was in response to so many students wanting to have pets on campus.”

Zeiszler wanted to remind students that Residence Life has them in mind when making decisions, and in most cases their decisions are not made alone.

“Everything we do, we try and do right by the residents,” Zeiszler said. “Some of those background conversations that people don’t hear are us, like, ‘How is this going to affect the residents? How can we make it more approachable for them? How do we make it better for them?’ We are concerned about those things.”