For most university housing teams, preparing 3000 rooms across 10 buildings for the arrival of students is an exercise in logistics, coordination and, inevitably, a little chaos. However, at St. John’s University in New York, the housing team is using data, automation and closer collaboration between departments to make the process much smoother and give staff more time to focus on providing students with the best experience for their investment.
The results are promising. At the start of the latest academic year, 30% of residents had moved in before the main arrival day, significantly reducing queues and congestion. Room inspections that previously required extensive manual data entry are now linked directly to the maintenance system, and staff report fewer room readiness issues and a more coordinated approach to student support.
GSL News spoke with Jason Bartlett, Senior Director of Residence Life and Basic Needs, and Joseph Dratch, Associate Director of Residence Life at St. John’s University, about how the university is using data to redesign its housing operations, break down departmental silos, and using technology to deliver a better student experience.
Running a small village
A private Catholic, Vincentian university with campuses in Queens and Manhattan, as well as international locations in Rome, Paris and Limerick, St. John’s serves a residential population of approximately 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Jason likens his role to being the mayor of a small village. Alongside Joe, whose work sits at the intersection of housing operations and technology, he oversees an increasingly interconnected residence life operation and its interface with facilities, conference services and international campuses.
The university has used the StarRez student housing management platform since 2013, but in recent years its ambitions for the system have grown considerably.
Joe describes StarRez as the hub that connects the different arms of the university’s housing operation. His focus is on identifying processes that have traditionally been manual, fragmented or spread across different systems, and finding better ways to integrate and streamline them.
As well as digitising existing processes, the team wants to use the information it already holds to anticipate problems, improve coordination and, ultimately, create a better experience for residents.
From reactive to predictive: rethinking room readiness
One of the biggest changes has been in how the team manages room inspections, maintenance and the changeover between the summer and autumn semesters.
Each summer, St. John’s residence halls are used by the university’s conference services operation. By mid-August, the buildings must be handed back to residence life, leaving around two weeks to prepare all of the rooms for returning students.
Previously, much of this process relied on large Excel spreadsheets, manual inspections and paper-based reporting. Each department had its own way of doing things, which made it hard to get a shared picture of which rooms were ready and which still needed attention.
Joe’s first step was to build a report that brought summer and fall housing bookings together, showing the team how much time was available to prepare each room.
“I was able to develop a report that allowed us to look at our data, not to tell us what happened, but to look at data and say, what’s going to happen”, he explains.
By identifying the gap between a summer departure and the next student’s arrival, facilities teams can prioritise the rooms with the shortest turnaround times.
The second step was to integrate StarRez with WebTMA, the university’s facilities work-order management system.
Resident assistants (RAs) and conference assistants (CAs) now carry out room condition inspections using a standard process. When an item falls below an agreed condition threshold, WebTMA automatically generates a maintenance request, and progress updates feed back into StarRez.
For the first time, residence life, conference services, and facilities teams can see the same information about room condition and outstanding maintenance work.
“It has allowed us to break down silos. Now we co-own this relationship around what’s happening for the room,” Joe explains.
The early signs are good. The team saw fewer configuration and maintenance problems during move-in, although Joe points out that this is based on staff experience rather than formal student satisfaction data.
We were able to run a small survey this year and while the results are limited, the overwhelming majority of students report high levels of satisfaction with the process.
For Jason, the bigger change has been shared accountability.
We’ve been able to create a culture that is very different, where we all see ourselves as partners in the enterprise, and not competing managers of the buildings.
Making move-in day a calmer experience
The university has also overhauled the arrival process for students.
Every resident must complete a move-in readiness checklist covering 16 requirements, including enrolment status, housing assignment and payment. Once they meet these requirements, students can book their move-in appointment.
This year, the university introduced a self-service early arrival option, so students could book extra days before the main move-in period without contacting the housing office.
It made a big difference. Around 30% of students moved in before the main arrival day, which spread demand more evenly and cut queues. It also took pressure off staff, who would normally field hundreds of calls from students asking to arrive early.
Move-in traditionally runs from 8am to 3pm, but this year Jason says the busiest period was over by midday. “Now we’ve made the actual move-in day a placid and enjoyable experience for everybody”, he says.
Staff have gained time too. Automating room inspections has saved RAs around a day and a half of manual spreadsheet entry, freeing up time for training and team development before students arrive.
This is significant, Joe says, because better-prepared staff can then focus more on the human side of the arrival experience.
He also points to an early sign of progress. In the first week of the room-change period this year, the university recorded around 10 room changes. In the past, the team has seen 75 to 80 room changes in a week, an 87% drop from the fall of 2021. Joe is careful not to claim a direct link but thinks better room preparation and stronger RA training played a part.
The new approach has also saved money. By shortening and reorganising RA training, coordinating it with early arrivals, and freeing up leaders from much of the manual labour, the university estimates it has saved at least $15,000 in meal costs alone.
Making maintenance work around students
Beyond move-in, St. John’s is looking at how the same principles can improve the student experience when it comes to everyday maintenance, particularly the way facilities staff enter students’ rooms. Jason explains:
If there is a student who has a significant accommodation need, for example a hearing impairment, we don’t want to create a scenario where a facilities representative walks in and the person on the other end doesn’t know they’re there or didn’t hear them. So we’ve worked with our public safety, accommodation, and facilities teams to utilize discreet flagging behind the scenes in the work order system, so our staff can help schedule those appointments and create a more customer-friendly approach to how someone arrives in your space.
These conversations have been productive in recognizing the very different operating styles of our departments. For example, the facilities team’s shift will begin at 6:00am, but our student generally don’t roll out of bed until 10:00am. Shifting the way we schedule to meet students where they are has been an important part of our coordination.
Joe had a great idea: we spend all this time training our students to get an appointment to move in. What if we created the same appointment process for them to schedule facilities, so it becomes a little more self-service, à la carte, as opposed to ‘facilities [is] here and we’re ready, now or never’? We’re trying to move much more towards using technology as a lever that will provide a better student experience, as opposed to treating the room like a work order ticket that just needs to be closed.
A consistent experience across international campuses
The same thinking is being extended to St. John’s international campuses.
Students who spend a semester abroad in Rome, Paris or Limerick have traditionally found a different housing process at each location, reflecting separate administrative arrangements.
The university is now bringing its international residence teams into the StarRez platform to create a more consistent housing application experience.
Although billing and operational arrangements may differ between campuses, the intention is that students applying for accommodation abroad will find the process familiar from the Queens campus.
Closer links with the university’s Global Studies programme are also helping it stay in touch with students overseas and making it easier for them to book housing for their return.
The initiative has required changes to data governance, expanding access beyond domestic residential students to include international students and commuters.
This work is still developing, but it reflects the university’s wider aim of giving students a joined-up experience, whichever campus or department they deal with.
Technology is only part of the solution
For Jason and Joe, the changes have been as much about organisational culture as technology.
Getting facilities, conference services, residence life and public safety teams working together has taken investment in relationships, shared responsibilities and staff training.
Senior residence life staff are now expected to have a core set of system skills, and this is being extended to other teams as the university relies more on shared data.
Jason believes showing colleagues the practical value of better information has been key to getting them on board: “Being able to say, ‘ Hey, take a look at this information. I’ve got this on my phone, live right now. I can get this anywhere, anytime. Hey, look at what we can do with this when it’s on an iPad. Your team could have this level of access as well.’ has been really helpful.” Just as important is a willingness to understand the pressures other departments face and to treat their problems as shared ones.
“When a gas main breaks, it’s not just the facilities problem,” he says, stressing the value of working alongside colleagues to understand issues first-hand and building relationships.
With universities under growing financial pressure and expected to do more with less, he sees this kind of collaboration as increasingly important.
St. John’s shows that data is most useful when it changes how people work together and where they direct their focus. By connecting information, automating routine tasks and sharing accountability, the university has freed up staff to spend more time on the student experience.
For Jason, the clearest sign that St. John’s data-driven and technology-enabled approach is working came at midday on move-in day, when the queues had gone and, in his words, “It was crickets. Everyone was yawning. It was smooth and orderly.”
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About St. John’s University
Founded in 1870, St. John’s University is a private Catholic university based in New York City, with campuses in Queens and Manhattan and international locations in Rome, Paris and Limerick. Its residence life operation supports approximately 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
For more information, visit www.stjohns.edu.
