When freshman Dave Norton received his housing assignment, he looked at it with disbelief.

He had been assigned to live in the International Living Center, a residence hall that he had no idea even existed. He looked the building up on the Internet and found it to be basically off-campus. It was not what he expected for his first year at Syracuse University.

‘When I found out,’ he said, ‘I was shocked, to say the least.’

Tucked away amidst the numerous off-campus houses of SU, on the corner of Euclid and Livingston avenues, sits the small, and in some ways infamous, residence hall called the International Living Center, known to those who live there as the ILC.

SU students often overlook this residence hall that houses no more than 40 residents. Secluded in an off-campus neighborhood, many of its freshmen residents say they are unhappy living there.

Though it is two blocks from the edge of campus, this is actually an on-campus living option. Freshmen are assigned to live there, but some current residents said they think it’s a terrible idea.

‘No freshman wants to be here,’ said Norton, a political science major. ‘If you have been here a while and are established, then it is a good building, but no freshmen should be here.’

Even though it is called the International Living Center, only four of its 36 residents are international students. In addition, most are freshmen assigned to live there. Of the original 39 residents who started in the fall semester, several have either moved buildings or transferred out of the university.

Others have made numerous phone calls and e-mails to the housing office asking to move. They have no desire to return next year.

‘I wrote like eight or nine emails to get out of here,’ freshman biology and business major Karlton Moore said. ‘I gave up.’

Some current freshmen residents are outraged with the building, complaining that it is too far from campus, among several other inconveniences. The ILC has no mailboxes or water fountains. Residents complain of dirty washing machines and old furniture in the rooms. They say living in the ILC has hurt some freshmen residents’ ability to build groups of friends and one said it hurt his grades.

The ILC was established in 1974 when it was bought from a discontinued sorority with the purpose of housing American and international students together, said Eileen Simmons, director of Housing, Meal Plans & ID Card Services, in an e-mail. Simmons also said freshmen have been a part of the ILC from the beginning.

No change is planned.

‘The ILC will continue to house freshmen for the coming years,’ Simmons said.

Some ILC residents were surprised to find out that they were living in the ILC because they are not international students and were unaware that the building even existed. They resorted to looking the building up on the Internet and were upset to find that it was basically off-campus.

The university does consider the building to be on campus and it is only one block from the back of Shaw Residence Hall.

‘I was concerned with it being far off,’ said freshman Stan Zavoyskiy, ‘but it’s kind of close.’

Nonetheless, many residents are outraged with the ILC’s amenities. The ILC does have a living area on the bottom floor, and a kitchen and laundry facility in the basement. But some residents complain that the washers are dirty.

‘The laundry machines have mold in them,’ freshman music industry major Travis Judd said, ‘and it is right near our kitchen.’

A flood in the basement at the beginning of February also hindered the use of the downstairs facilities.

‘When people came to clean the flood in the basement,’ Judd said, ‘they dumped the muddy water in the kitchen sink.’

Additionally, the rooms of the ILC are furnished with what residents said looks like second-hand furniture and do not meet the standards the students expect.

‘We don’t have doors on our closets,’ Norton said, ‘or screens on our windows.’

Simmons said she was not aware of any complaints, but improvements were made to the ILC and that more are planned.

‘Cyclical upgrades made to the ILC this year included carpet replacement, wireless Internet, new pool table mat, new pool cues, new entertainment center,’ Simmons said. ‘All of our halls are on a cycle for major improvements. This summer, as mentioned, the bathrooms will be refurbished. Furniture is also on a cycle for replacement.’

A huge inconvenience is ILC residents’ mailboxes location in Shaw’s lobby, next to the mailboxes of Shaw residents, according to ILC residents. This means, to read their mail, ILC residents must walk two blocks down Euclid Avenue.

They are unable to cut through Shaw’s backdoor, since it is locked at night with a sign hanging on the door warning that emergency sirens will sound if opened. Meanwhile, Shaw residents can just stroll down the stairs into the lobby to retrieve their mail.

Getting locked out of their room is an even bigger issue, residents said, since Shaw and the ILC share resident adviser staff and the spare room keys are kept behind the Shaw main desk. The ILC does not have a front desk of its own. Norton said he got locked out at 2:30 a.m. once, and had to walk to Shaw and knock on the door of an RA that he had never met to retrieve the spare key.

The building is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Residents huddle up against their heaters and wear layers of clothing to stay warm.

‘I don’t think that there is any insulation,’ Judd said. ‘It’s either really cold in here or boiling.’

There are no useable pool sticks for the residents to use on the small pool table that is falling apart, despite its new mat in the ground floor living area. There are no water fountains for the residents to use, making the residents purchase water from a seldom-stocked vending machine.

‘I would have saved so much money on water if we had a water fountain,’ Judd said.

Other residents complained there are no newspaper racks, when some SU professors require students to read the paper regularly for class.

‘My professors say you should know this because the university provides it free of charge,’ said freshman Shehtaaz Zaman, one of the ILC’s few international residents. ‘I’m paying the same as everyone but I don’t have the same, and my grades are suffering.’

Yet, as director, Simmons said she believes the ILC’s amenities are similar to other residence halls, with bathroom improvements to be completed this summer.

‘As far as room types, amenities, public space,’ she said, ‘I’d say the building is comparable.’

Still, living at the ILC makes it tough to build social networks because making friends outside of the ILC is difficult, residents said. When residents tell other students they live in the ILC, they receive a bewildered reaction because many SU students are unaware of the ILC’s existence.

‘They have no idea what it is or where it is,’ Judd said, ‘or even what ILC stands for.’

Norton said some of his friends from outside the ILC pity that he has to live there and he admitted he actually spends some nights in Flint Residence Hall.

But some of the residents do not mind the ILC as much, even with its flaws.

‘Sometimes it’s just kind of far away,’ freshman Alexa Pomerico said. ‘It prepares us for our junior and senior year when we won’t have a dining hall and stuff and we will have to walk to campus.’

Still, Pomerico said she does not want to live in the ILC next year. A sentiment echoed by many of the other freshmen residents.

‘It’s alright,’ said Zavoyskiy, referring to the ILC. ‘You don’t really get the true college experience, but it is small and quiet.’

Other freshmen residents are completely unsatisfied with their experience in the ILC.

‘I think the best thing to do with this is not have it as a freshman dorm,’ Moore said.

Published on March 22, 2007 at 12:00 pm