CSU students return to renovated Westfall Hall as move-in days for more than 6,000 begin

Dylan Hauff was a bit jealous Monday morning when he walked into his younger sister’s room at Colorado State University’s Westfall Hall.

Renovations that kept the 12-story residence hall closed throughout the 2022-23 school year had made it far nicer, he said, than the dormitory room he had two years earlier as a freshman next door at Durward Hall, the other 12-story residence hall on CSU’s main campus in Fort Collins.

“I think it’s bigger; it just seems so new,” Dylan said as he and his sister, Mattie, unloaded boxes, bags and lacrosse sticks from an SUV they had driven from their home in Bel Air, Maryland, to Fort Collins. Skis locked in a rack on the roof drew a few stares as they drove across the country in August, they said.

Monday was the first of three move-in days for the more than 6,000 students, mostly freshmen, who will spend the fall semester in one of CSU’s 12 residence halls. Of those, 2,465 were scheduled to move in at allotted times Monday, CSU spokesperson Nik Olsen said. CSU won't have an official count of new students until October, he said, but last year welcomed a record first-year class of 5,517 to bring its on-campus enrollment to 27,956.

CSU adopted assigned move-in times for its residence halls as a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize indoor crowding, said Nick Sweeton, associate executive director of housing and dining services.

“It worked so well we kept it,” he said. “It limits the number of people per hour per building, it keeps the lines shorter, and it just makes the process a lot smoother.”

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Trucks and SUVs full of students’ belongings were lined up in 30-minute loading and unloading zones along both sides of Plum and Pitkin streets and in the large parking lot west of Westfall and Durward. Family members stood beside piles of belongings that had been dropped off on the sidewalks outside the residence halls, waiting for their students and others to return to take another load up to their rooms.

“I’m excited. It’s a new chapter in my life,” said Gracyn Burtt, a freshman from Highlands Ranch who was waiting for her parents to repark their vehicle and return to help her carry a mini-fridge, vacuum cleaner, clothing, decorations and boxes of other items to her room at Corbett Hall.

She was also looking forward to meeting her roommate from Texas. They connected with one another online months ago but were going to meet in person for the first time Monday.

Dozens of CSU housing and dining services and facilities employees directed traffic in the parking lots, enforced the 30-minute parking limits in the unloading areas and helped students check out wheeled carts to haul their belongings to their rooms. Sweeton said 300 to 400 members of the housing and dining staff were working volunteer shifts for move-in, and more than 200 student staff were helping with the check-in process and meeting and greeting new students.

Sorority and fraternity members — 1,500 were signed up to help at various times over the three days, Kappa Alpha Theta’s Olivia Villella, said — were on hand to help carry bags and boxes, and many of CSU’s student-athletes were helping, as well.

Craig and Veronica Harrison, who live in northern New Jersey, were moving one of their children into a dorm at a major university for the third time and said CSU’s process was far better than those they encountered previously.

“I saw more people today helping out than I did in those two years combined logistically,” Craig said. “And everyone knows what they’re doing: the signage, the parking, everything.”

Added Veronica: “They get an A-plus for organization and helpfulness and willingness.”

Bringing Westfall and its 400 beds in 200 rooms back online, plus the addition of 120 other beds through room modifications increased CSU’s capacity in its residence halls to 6,600, Sweeton said. That’s more than enough to meet the demand from first-year students, unlike last year when the university had to rent out the nearby Best Western University Inn to house about 150 students for the fall semester.

Westfall underwent extensive cosmetic renovations that included replacing all of the windows and flooring. The size of the rooms themselves didn’t change, he said, but the other renovations might make it seem that way. Durward, Sweeton said, will undergo similar renovations in a couple years.

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Stephen Albert, a freshman from Amarillo, Texas, said he stayed in another residence hall at CSU that had been renovated during his orientation earlier this summer and was hoping his new room at Westfall would have a similar feel.

And it did, he said.

“This is a good place for him,” his mother, Christy, said, as they unloaded their SUV. "He’s up on the 11th story with a mountain view.”

Colorado’s mountains and outdoor recreational opportunities were a major draw for several of the out-of-state students moving in Monday.

Chris Harrison enjoys rock climbing and skiing, his mother said. Access to those activities was every bit as important to him as the academic program in horticulture, his field of study.

“He was very focused on needing balance, so a good academic program was important,” Veronica Harrison said. “But being able to get out of his dorm and doing things that are recreational was of paramount importance to him.”

Veronica Young, a freshman from Saratoga, New York, said she brought two pairs of skis — one for powder and one for terrain parks — in the SUV she and her parents, along with a younger sister, drove through seven states over four days to reach Fort Collins.

“You’ve got to be prepared,” Young said. “This is exciting.”

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: More than 6,000 students moving into residence halls at Colorado State