Dormitories will be available to house international students starting in the 2012-2013 school year.
The dorms will be built in the former convent and will be home to about 16 international students, according to President Richard O’Hara.
“We are planning to renovate the former convent to serve as a residence hall for international students because we have received such a tremendous amount of interest from international recruiting efforts, especially from China,” O’Hara said.
According to O’Hara, the dorms will allow for enrollment of more international students and will not affect non-international students.
“We had so much interest that we wanted to take advantage of. We knew that we could not find as many host families as there is demand. Roughly, we would have 16 students living in the hall, and we’re hoping at least a handful of families would also offer to host in their home,” O’Hara said.
According to Principal Madelyn Ball, because the dorm will be one floor of the building, it will be an all-male dorm. There will also be an adult advisor living with them. This person may or may not be a faculty member.
“We have to have somebody who’s going to live there all the time, but then there also has to be someone who can relieve them if they need to go somewhere or do something,” Ball said.
The cost of living in the dorms will be included in tuition for the international students. “The international students come with a certain amount of money for room and board, so it would go to us or, if they were staying with a host family, it would go to the host family,” Ball said.
According to O’Hara, renovations will start late in the current school year and mostly take place during the summer. The dorms should be ready by mid-August 2012, which is when students will start moving in. They will live there throughout the duration of the school year and return home in June 2013.
“The main renovation would be, in order to get up to fire code, we’d have to put a sprinkler system in the building,” O’Hara said.
Other renovations include changing conference rooms into dorms, places for advisors to live, dining rooms, lounges, or libraries. The plans are not finalized.
Other than that, “reconfiguration of restrooms and dorm spaces” would be the only things to change to make the building livable, according to O’Hara.
According to O’Hara, the dance studio and administrative offices on the first floor would remain where they are, as the dorms will be on the second floor.
“I think it is a fantastic opportunity for the school to have kids living here on campus. It makes us really unique,” Ball said.
Martha Schick is a Managing Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.