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Student rush For Janice Yonamine, it's just a move to another part of her neighborhood when she joins the rush to the University of Hawaii dormitories.
to dorms crowds
University Ave.
A new drive-through check-in
adds problems, some sayBy Leila Fujimori
Star-Bulletin
Yonamine is from Manoa, but puts up with moving in and out of UH housing every semester. She queued up early on University Avenue yesterday, but spent 45 minutes waiting to check in and another half hour taking her carful of belongings to her apartment.
"It's more freedom, and it's a lot of fun," Yonamine said about living in the dorms.
About 3,000 students are moving into the dorms this Admission Day weekend. Classes at UH Manoa start Monday.
Trucks, cars and vans piled high with luggage and boxes lined University Avenue about 1 p.m. yesterday, and the same was expected to happen again today.
Traffic was backed up on University Avenue about a block from Dole Street -- a preview of the increased traffic this weekend and throughout the school term. Many of UH-Manoa's Oahu students drive to and from classes each day.
Those Oahu students who move into UH dorms and apartments translate into that many fewer students commuting to school. This fall's enrollment isn't yet available, but was 17,035 last fall.
Student Mark Mamaril said that living in a dorm is more convenient for him than living at home in Kapolei.
As an education major, he said he'll be going out to different elementary schools and didn't want to travel back and forth from Kapolei.The university is trying a new drive-through check-in system for residents, centrally located at the lower campus parking garage, to minimize traffic along Dole Street.
"There was a mad rush at 1 p.m., but a little after 2 p.m., the line was gone," said Janice Chu Camara, interim director of UH student housing services.
A few praised the new system, but many, like Wayne Tanaka, who was driving his daughter to the check-in, were upset. Tanaka's truck overheated while idling in the long line for more than an hour, so he turned the air conditioning off and suffered in the heat.
After the check-in line subsided, the crowd of vehicles shifted into the parking lots at the two UH apartment complexes where students were moving in yesterday.
The big check-in at the nine residence halls was scheduled for today.
Camara said dormitories will be filled to the 3,000-person capacity, and she received more applications for this fall than all of last year. Of that number, about 50 are neighbor-island residents attending community college.
Justin Phillip of Maui was helping friend Brianne Ornellas move into an apartment-style dormitory. Although Phillip, a Kapiolani Community College student, was in on-campus dorms for the past three semesters, he could not get a room this semester, so must find accommodations elsewhere.
Ornellas said she would not consider living elsewhere because "it's too expensive to live off campus."
Her roommate Kris Fukushima, another senior from Maui, said she requested an apartment in the quiet-designated building, so "I can study and don't get too distracted."
University of Hawaii Ka Leo O Hawaii
