Sitting on her new couch, in her new living room, Kelly Kipp couldn’t help but smile as she talked about her apartment.
“I just love, love the apartment,” she said.
Kipp was one of the first students to move into Flathead Valley Community College’s new student housing when it opened last month. The two apartment buildings, located near Kalispell Regional Medical Center, are leased from the hospital to the college, offering rooms for 28 students in 16 apartments.
According to K.C. Voermans, the college has been looking at student housing as long as she has been at the school – 27 years – but other issues always prevented it from happening.
“It just seemed like dorms were a big step when you don’t have (full) food service or full-time campus security, so this is a big step,” Voermans, who serves as special project coordinator for the college, said.
Voermans’ job is to meet with students and help them fill out the application to live there. For $650 per month, students get an apartment, with or without a roommate, with all utilities included as well as Internet and cable television. The apartments aren’t furnished, save for a refrigerator and a stove.
In the past, students from outside the area would have to find off-campus housing on their own, but now students and their families can do so through the college, which brings an added reassurance to parents, according to Dean of Students Brenda Hanson.
“Parents feel more comfortable if there is a residence hall and someone to look out for their child,” Hanson said, adding that student housing isn’t rare for a community college, it just has never been a feasible option for FVCC until now.
As the student housing assistant, Clair Graham, who is also studying at FVCC, has been living in one of the apartments in exchange for being available to residents. She helps students with tasks such as setting up Internet and other questions that might come up for someone new to the area.
“Most of the kids aren’t from Kalispell, so it’s good to have a place to ask questions,” she said.
Kipp, who is originally from Browning, is doing general studies in her first year in college. Eventually she hopes to go into elementary education. She said she planned on going to FVCC before she heard about the student housing, but it was certainly an added bonus, especially for her family.
“Housing was a concern because the Flathead Valley doesn’t have dorms and it concerned my relatives…they thought that it was important my freshman year to be in a dorm to meet people,” Kipp said.
But meeting new people has taken a back seat to studying and Kipp said she enjoys being able to come home and study in a quiet environment, something that’s not always possible in a traditional dorm.
Voermans said the apartments appear to be a success and students seem to be settling in well. She also said the partnership between the hospital and the college is a “win-win” for both sides and she hopes it will continue in the future, perhaps with additional housing.
“After seeing how well this has come together, we’d certainly entertain the thought,” she said.