700 students will make Lakehead University residence their home away from home.
It was moving day Thursday despite the province in the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s super exciting, you see the enthusiasm on the students and parents faces,” explains Shannon Foster, Director of Residence Services. “It’s been a long year and a half for a lot of us, and even though we were open last year and we had limited numbers in terms of students, this year we’re looking pretty healthy with our numbers.”
The University confirmed on August 18th that students would need to be vaccinated to live on residence.
Part of move-in day included checking proof of vaccination for students.
Among the measures in place to ensure a safe experience includes restricting off-campus guests in residence, though students living on residence will be able to visit each other.
Foster says the pandemic has had an impact on the population of international students in LU residences.
“It’s down, the flight restrictions from Pakistan and India has really limited the amount of international students that have been able to get here,” says Foster. “For us in residence, we are allowing all students to show up, but some students will have to do a mandatory 14-day quarantine as per government regulations. We have space for that so a lot of students have been doing that here in residence, and then they’ve been moving into what we call their forever residence room in the fall.”
Foster says this number could increase to 900 or more come January.
