Crowe Hall has been closed for this academic year, according to Associate Dean of Judicial Affairs and Residence Life Rob Williford. He said that Crowe Hall is not fully closed, however it is not operational. With enrollment for living on campus being down, he said, the University of Indianapolis decided to make Crowe Hall non-operational. Williford said that Crowe Hall would be used in cases of emergency like a policy violation, Title IX or for a COVID-19 influx.
“Crowe is one of our older buildings,” Williford said. “As you can imagine, with buildings that age, over time, there are several maintenance related concerns or things like that. So, when we were determining which hall would be [closed], Crowe was the one that we determined.”
Although Crowe Hall is currently not operational, the lights and the necessary safety processes are still on, Williford said. It is not currently staffed, and will remain this way until there is a need for resident assistants and professional staff.
Last academic year, there were renovations done on Cory Bretz Hall. There are no plans to do renovations on Crowe Hall because giving a residence hall a “face lift” is an investment, Williford said. There are a lot of deciding factors that go into doing renovations on residence halls and those decisions fall upon the facilities team, Williford said.
As it pertains to RAs, Williford said none were hired for Crowe Hall, however, there were more RAs hired in other buildings for the Living Learning Communities. Crowe Hall being closed does not affect students significantly because there is still wiggle room in most of the currently open halls if students need to be moved, he said.
“If somebody wants to, or needed to move because of an accommodation request … We still have this space right now and several of the halls to be able to do that,” Williford said.
Crowe Hall is still able to be used in emergency situations. Williford said that previously for COVID-19, students have been sent to a nearby hotel in order to isolate themselves. Now, students can request to move into Crowe Hall for an interim period. He said that it would also be used if a student needed to move for Title IX or other policy violations.
There is hope that Crowe Hall will reopen at some point, Williford said. There could be an influx of transfers at the semester or commuters who do not want to commute, he said. For the 2024 fall semester, he said that he is hopeful that enrollment will be at a place where they can reopen Crowe Hall.
“[The] most important thing is that we want to give people a safe and comfortable living space,” Williford said. “And if that’s not possible with any of our halls, we would like to take a serious look at that so that we don’t give people a negative experience.”
