The Rocket

Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Focus

During any given week, 7,825 undergraduate students shuffle from class to class through snow drifts and bitter temperatures.

During the weekend, SRU is a barren plot of land nearly void of student life and activity. Where have all the students gone?

On the weekends, the most likely answer is home.

Debra Hockenberry of the ID Card Office said the use of the dining halls decreases when Saturday and Sunday roll around.

For the first two weeks of school this semester, the average use of meal plans on campus was 7,927, while weekend usage of meal plan transactions decreased to 3,522, according to Hockenberry.

"The 14 meals a week meal plan has the highest count, it's my most popular meal plan," she said. "A lot of students on that plan are not required to have it. The students who have that meal plan are not all residence hall students."

With the renovation of Boozel, the number of larger meal plans purchased by students has increased, Hockenberry said.

But a meal plan over the weekend didn't keep freshman criminal justice major, Jenah Jackson, 19, on-campus last semester. She stayed only one weekend out of the entire 15 week period.

But Jackson doesn't go home.

"I stayed once last semester," Jackson said. "I have a boyfriend who goes to school 30 minutes from here. The one weekend, I was here was because my boyfriend was actually available to stay here for the weekend."

Most of her North Hall floor stays at school, she said.

"I know the girls [in the room] next to me stay here," Jackson said.

And most of my friends stay here."

Megan Robas, 18, a freshman psychology major, also goes home on the weekends to visit her boyfriend and family, though her trips aren't frequent.

"I go home every two to three weeks," Robas said. "I want to see my boyfriend and family, and do my laundry. I come home and my mom does my laundry."

Freshman psychology major, Sarah Miller, 18, leaves SRU every other weekend for her home, which is 45 minutes away. But when she does stay at school for the weekend, she and her friends find ways to keep themselves entertained.

"We go bowling a lot," she said. "We have a lot of movie nights where we hang out."

The rest of the students who live on the same Building E floor as Miller don't leave campus when the work week is over.

"My floor never goes home," she said.

And neither does Miller's roommate.

Continued...

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