Correction: Elon News Network mistakenly included the names of faculty who were contacted for another story. These names have since been removed from the article. Elon News Network regrets this error.
Updated as of 10:07 a.m. on Sept. 4 to include additional photos of EcoVillage homes.
Sophomore Kai Baker said he signed up to live in the EcoVillage Living Learning Community this year as an environmental and sustainability studies major excited to live with like-minded people. Baker did not plan to be living out of a suitcase in Danieley for the first week of classes while the EcoVillage houses are still being finished.
The EcoVillage contains six sustainably designed homes and includes plans to make six more by fall 2025. There is a student gathering building, outdoor common spaces and each house has two bedrooms — with two residents per house. Any sophomores, juniors and seniors who had attended Elon and lived on campus for two semesters or more were eligible to apply.
Building 2619-4 at Eco Village, one of six houses students live in on Loy Farm.
The houses were supposed to be done by the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, with students originally moving in Aug. 10, Baker said. This date was first pushed back to Aug. 22 and then pushed back later that weekend when other returning students would be moving to other residence halls. For nearly three weeks, the 11 students registered to move into EcoVillage were relocated into temporary living in different places on campus and received daily emails with updates.
On the afternoon of Aug. 30, students were notified that they were able to move into the EcoVillage, as the building had passed final inspections, according to Kirsten Carrier, Elon director of Residence Life. Though they would have liked to have students move in as early as Aug. 10, Carrier said the village wasn't scheduled to open until Aug. 25.
One of the main issues Baker took with this process is the fact that the daily email students are receiving comes at 5 p.m. — once the residence life office is closed.
“The shadiness of things being emailed at 5 p.m. and then, the way Res Life is handling this and not telling us things, are all very problematic,” Baker said.
Carrier said her office updated students as soon as they had information from contractors and inspectors, recognizing that this timeline was not ideal for all students.
“I was holding out hope every day, that by five o'clock we would have something at least positive, or at least the current status — whatever information I could share — to communicate out to students that day,” Carrier said. “What was accomplished, what we're looking forward to for the next day, and certainly wanted to get them the most up-to-date information possible.”
The interior of building 2619-3 at the EcoVillage, the building Kai Baker moved into on Aug. 30.
Carrier said while Elon had hoped to have students able to move in on time — with construction projects such as this, it is hard to plan ahead.
“We always do hope for early access to our construction projects,” Carrier said. “We never plan on it. We hope for it. In this case, our early arrivals for EcoVillage were told, ‘Hey, we need to move you to a temporary house as we are waiting for those final pieces to wrap up.’ And so those were sent in a variety of communications in early August.”
Carrier also said Residence Life balanced a number of projects this summer — such as the opening of the East Neighborhood Commons building and renovations to Historic Neighborhood’s Hook, Barney and Brannock dorms.
“I was fully, full steam ahead on the move-in, on the 25th, until I wasn't. So unfortunately, there wasn't a ton of heads up I was able to get,” Carrier said.
Jacob Rutz, one of the advisers of the LLC, was not available for comment on the EcoVillage and Brad Moore, university architect, was initially unavailable for comment regarding the EcoVillage and did not respond to Elon News Network's immediate request for comment on the timeline of the project.
Baker said adjusting to Danieley has been difficult as students were also told by Residence Life to not fully unpack, as they could be moving in any day. Baker said he is now living out of a backpack and had been hoping, particularly as the school year has started, to be able to get settled more into a routine.
“If I knew I was living in Dan for the whole year, I would make it work,” Baker said. “It's not the cutest, but I would make it work because I knew I was definitively living there. But just not knowing is, I would say, the hardest part, and why I think me and other people that are living there have been struggling with it. It's not that it's not nice, it's just that it's hard not knowing where you're living.”
Right now most students, including Baker, are living in Danieley, he said. A number of them are also living in doubles, but all paid for a single room in the EcoVillage.
Students have been compensated with $100 food dollars and a mini fridge — as many of the upperclassmen do not have full meal plans and don’t have direct access to a full kitchen in Danieley as they would in the EcoVillage, Baker said.
Baker said students were told they were going to get an update on Aug. 30 at 5 p.m., and if the buildings passed inspections, they should be able to move in.
“They might be telling the truth,” Baker said. “I'm getting a little excited. Every time I do, I'm like, ‘I can't get excited,’ because every time I get excited, I get an email that's like, you're not moving in.”