Newport This Week

Salve to House Students at the Marriott



More than 100 Salve Regina junior and senior students will be calling the Marriott Newport home for the upcoming school year.

More than 100 Salve Regina junior and senior students will be calling the Marriott Newport home for the upcoming school year.

About 140 Salve Regina University students are being provided with a change of scenery this year after the administration announced it has executed a contract with the Newport Marriott to create a satellite residence hall.

The effort is part of the private institution’s program to fulfill its educational mission while minimizing potential spread of COVID-19. Students assigned to the downtown hotel on America’s Cup Avenue have received move-in dates scheduled for Sept. 7 and Sept. 8.

Jim Mournighan, Salve Regina’s director of Residence Life, said the school negotiated with the hotel for a nightly rate that covers the entire academic year. The third and fourth floors will be utilized for students, with four resident advisors moving in to oversee them.

The change was necessary to conform to mandated housing guidelines because the university lacks the living space required to reduce resident hall capacity. Although the single and double occupancy rooms on campus are remaining the same, many that housed three or more students had to be reduced.

“Some rooms were allowed to stay triples or quads depending if we were able to have six feet of distance between each person,” he said. “We had to find room to house [the remaining students] somewhere. We chose to investigate the hotel option and Marriott ended up being our decision.”

Salve Regina currently has 28 residence halls. It needed one additional hall to open safely. “The Marriott is basically acting as a residence hall for us,” he said.

Hotel amenities will be available to students, including the pool and fitness center. They will also receive a 20 percent discount for spa services and the on-site Mainsail Restaurant.

Marriott and Salve representatives have been meeting over the summer to hash out health and public safety protocols. Visitation guidelines will conform to on-campus rules, which prohibit overnight guests and only allow Salve Regina community members within residence halls.

“That was our decision, not the Marriott’s,” said Mournighan. “We are trying to create an environment where only our people interact. Clearly, they’ll be at a hotel, so there will be people coming and going through the lobby. But we are trying to keep the concept of our students as kind of an [independent] unit.”

Students assigned to the Marriott could choose to live offcampus, said Mournighan, but weren’t likely to do so because housing is included in the regular room and board rate that ranges from $4,790 to $6,100 annually, along with the weekly meal plan. The Marriott will be housing mostly juniors and seniors, who would have had to pay for alternative housing if they opted out.

Students living at the Marriott will be expected to follow the policies set forth for on-campus residences, with “any exceptions … based on needs associated with managing a luxury hotel environment,” according to a June 29 communication to parents and students. Male and female students will reside on separate floors “to the extent possible.” The parties have negotiated a separate entrance and exit.

Due to the timing of the move, which even in the current pandemic is within the busy season for the hotel, incoming students are being asked to arrive in predetermined two-hour blocks. Students will be allowed to be accompanied by two family members, who must wear masks while on the property.

Salve Regina has also contracted with the Cambridge-based Broad Institute, a biomedical research organization born of a partnership between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They will administer polymerase chain reaction tests free of charge, which collect nasal and throat swabs from saliva, to all students prior to the start of classes on Sept. 9.

In addition, all students are being required to submit daily selfscreening updates through the university’s campus alert system, known as Rave Guardian. Positive tests will result in a transfer to isolation housing, although the administration is encouraging quarantine at a permanent residence, if possible.

Mournighan said that the majority of students arriving from out of state have already begun a two-week quarantine, regardless of whether they tested negative before arrival, and that the remainder will do so before the start of classes.

“We are testing students as they arrive,” he said.

As of July 23, Salve Regina has received $857,705 from the federal CARES Act to assist qualified students with coronavirus-related expenses such as food, housing and course materials. Of the 1,763 undergraduate students eligible, 737 have already received grant funds.

Salve Regina has been seeking permission for years from the city to construct two new residence halls, which have yet to gain approval. Regardless, said Mournighan, the pandemic would have likely required outside space. Students are now required to live on campus for two years, and the administration has ambitions to someday secure adequate housing for all students for three years.

Asked if Salve officials had concerns over students living on the other end of Newport in a hotel setting, Mournighnan was confident that no major issues would ensue. Any infractions will be handled on a case-by-case basis according to policies set forth in the student handbook, he said.

“The students there are going to be expected to abide by the same policies as anyone else that’s living in a residence hall,” he said. “If it leads to someone calling the front desk for something … we will treat it the same way as if we were doing it on campus.”

2 responses to “Salve to House Students at the Marriott”

  1. CJ says:

    As a member of the Marriott gym, I am rather shocked that the school is allowing students to use the pool and small gym when the university has their own. I was told the students will be no different than other guests, but this is NOT true at all, because how many guests know the inhabitants of 70 other rooms and socialize room to room with those 70 other rooms, over the course of an 8 month stay, and then interface freely with the public at large in a small area after hours of sitting in a lecture hall with yet even more unaccompanied teens? The Marriott is supposed to provide residents of Newport with certain opportunities as an term of agreement with the city, but sounds like we are a very low priority to them, as is our very health and well-being. Once again, the big corporation does not honor its deals and harms the citizens in their quest for money–that they will take out of state to their Utah masters.

  2. CJ says:

    Addendum
    And I am very disappointed in Salve Regina’s cavalier attitude towards the residents of this city as well, in touting the pool (as if any dorm has ever featured its own pool). This will not be forgotten.

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