The University of Minnesota is reorganizing Off-Campus Living, a unit of the Office of Student Affairs that has existed since 2003. The restructuring will move resources for students who commute and live off campus to other units under the OSA, but no programs are being cut.
OCL offered services including Roommate Finder, a Facebook group moderated by OCL and a list of Non-Compliance Properties to guide students to safe and fair leases. Their website also featured pages on commuter resources and safety.
With the OCL unit being phased out, OCL community liaison and Commuter Connection room co-chair Arya Lucht, a fourth-year student, said OCL work ends on June 14. Even with that date in mind, Lucht said the department has not had much work to do since the end of May.
Lucht has worked with Commuter Connection, a student program with a dedicated space for commuter students to use, since the spring of 2024, but only became room co-chair at the start of June. They said they worry the transition away from OCL has left a gap in the education of students.
“Commuter Connection isn’t as focused on providing [educational] resources as OCL was,” Lucht said.
OSA senior director for student engagement Emily Oswalt oversees OCL. In an email statement, she said the work of supporting off-campus students has traditionally been a shared effort, so the quality of services should not drop.
“Some programs and services will continue to be overseen by the Office for Student Affairs, while others will be led by partners who have been doing this work effectively,” Oswalt said.
Oswalt said the OSA will continue to offer re-entry education and support the Commuter Connection student group, adding the non-compliance property list will continue to be published as well. The list was maintained by OCL, Housing and Residential Life and Student Legal Service.
OSA associate vice president for student engagement Meaghan Miller Thul said the purpose of reorganizing OCL is to best serve varying populations of off-campus students. She said as technology and students’ needs change, grouping every tool under OCL is no longer the best option.
“A sophomore who is just moving out of the residence halls into their first apartment is going to have different needs than a junior or senior who’s been doing this for a little while,” Miller Thul said. “Or a student who has always lived with their family at home and has commuted 15 or 20 miles.”
On the technology side, Miller Thul said Roommate Finder will also be undergoing changes; however, the next platform for Roommate Finder has not yet been decided. As well as the University-moderated Roommate Finder, students can also use public tools to look for roommates, such as Facebook and Reddit.
While working as a liaison, Lucht said they and their colleagues would answer student questions at the OCL office in Appleby Hall, as well as provide information at the Off-Campus Housing Fair. Now, at Commuter Connection, they said the educational resources are still available, but are not the focus of their job.
“I’m really sad that OCL is no longer a thing, that you can’t have both Commuter Connection and OCL at the same time,” Lucht said.
