For BU students, the Hyatt Regency leaves the light on
When Boston University sophomores Michael Boyd and Sean Collignon went to a meeting last month about selecting a dorm for next year, they were met by a platter of oatmeal cookies, an industrial-size jug of lemonade, and a team of housing officials with fliers flaunting amenities like half-price room service, a health club, free Internet service, swimming pool privileges, and cable TV.
"Some woman came out of nowhere," said Boyd, 20. "She just, like, swooped in and started talking about the Hyatt."
That's Hyatt as in the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, directly across the river from BU's Charles River Campus in Boston.
For the first time in its history, BU is offering the hotel as an official housing option for students, and is asking, if not practically begging, upperclassmen to choose to live there next fall.
Finding hotel housing for overflow freshmen and transfer students is not a new tactic of area colleges. BU has partnered with the Hyatt before when residence halls were oversubscribed, said Marc Robillard, director of the university's housing office. But typically, the students have lived in a hotel for the fall semester and then moved into campus housing in January, when spaces become available from attrition or students leaving to study abroad, Robillard said.
For the fall, BU has decided to do something a little different, making it a goal to have every member of the incoming class of 2011 living in a residence hall on campus.
To do this, something or someone has got to give, meaning almost 300 sophomores, juniors, and seniors are going to have to opt for life in a hotel for this idea to work.
"I think some upperclassmen realize the importance of having freshmen in the traditional dormitories along the campus here, and they are really trying to take one for the team," said dean of students Kenneth Elmore, who proposed the plan.
Several weeks ago, Elmore sent an e-mail to BU students announcing that the Hyatt is available as an official room selection option for the fall 2007 semester, and that students could now choose, instead of being forced, to live there.
"Freshmen living within a campus residence, instead of a hotel, receive residential stability during a time when it is crucial to develop connections within the university community," Elmore wrote in his e-mail.
Students who opt for the Hyatt will live in a double room and pay the same rate as students living in one of the university's large dormitory-style residence halls, which is $3,550 per semester, Robillard said.
(Some dorms are more expensive, but for the 2007-08 academic year, a double room in Warren Towers and West Campus, the large freshman dorms, is $3,550 per semester.)
The required dining plan for freshmen is $1,925 per semester, whether in dorms or at the Hyatt. Any Hyatt room service ordered by students would be an additional food cost, according to Robillard.
As in previous years, the students will be placed back on campus in January, but as a reward for choosing to live in the Hyatt, students will be given a housing number at the front of their class, enabling them to have a prime selection of on-campus housing for the following year.
The Hyatt designates certain floors in the hotel as student-only and transforms the hotel rooms into makeshift dorm rooms. BU removes the "luxurious Hyatt Grand beds," the "ultra-plush pillows," and large work desk, and replaces them with standard student twin beds, small study desks, and an extra storage closet -- though the students do get to keep the room's giant TV with cable and pay-per-view.
The Hyatt declined to discuss how the hotel copes with such notorious college behaviors as loud music and late-night noise. Hyatt spokeswoman Debbie Smith said it is company policy not to comment on private contracts involving guests.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said the Hyatt staff seems to enjoy having students on the premises. "They go out of their way to accommodate our needs and to help the students realize this is their home," said Riley.
Ryan Wisser and Chris Deacon are neighbors on the fifth floor of Rich Hall, which is one of three dorms on West Campus. Over 1,800 students live on West, which overlooks a sports field, track, and tennis courts.
It also has a large dining hall, three laundry rooms, a computer lab, and a darkroom. Wisser is president of the West Campus Residence Hall Association, but he and Deacon have decided they want to room together at the Hyatt next fall.
"We have already established a connection," said Deacon, 18. "So we can just come over here and hang out with people whenever we want."
Plus, with housing numbers placing them at virtually the end of their class, the two would most likely end up back on West Campus again -- meaning another year of communal bathrooms and sleeping only feet away from roommates in a tiny dorm room.
For some students who lived in the Hyatt last semester, going there again is not even a consideration.
Freshman Michael Storozum is one of those students. He said the hotel tainted his first-year experience at BU.
"I didn't know how far removed it was from everything," said Storozum, 18. "It is very antisocial."
Storozum said on a typical day he would wake up early in the morning before class, catch the shuttle bus to campus, and not return back to his room until after 11 at night.
"There is really no way for them rectify a semester living in a hotel," said Storozum. "It was just not a good semester."
Storozum's parents were also not happy about their son's living situation. His mother, Catherine, said she was not aware of how unhappy he was.
"I thought they would take better care of freshmen," said Catherine, who lives in St. Louis. "I didn't understand what was going on, because I wasn't there."
Laurel Beede also lived in the Hyatt last semester. The freshman said she would not live there again but remembers the hotel as a positive experience.
"My roommate and I ordered room service a lot, and we were just kind of living it up, said Beede, 19.
"It was a pretty sweet deal."
Lara Farrar can be reached at ciweek@globe.com. 
