Freshman finds the passport to free rent

     Imagine knowing that next year, you were going to live at The Village Apartments for free. Brandon Williams, a freshman at GCSU, won this privilege playing the Week of Welcome Passport Game.
     Williams, a current resident of Bell Hall, won the grand prize valued at $8,000 for the 2008-2009 school year. In addition, he also is granted first choice on his room selection.
     “I’m thinking about a two person room in the 400 building because it has a larger living room,” said Williams. “You lose some of the kitchen, but I’m not a good cook anyway.”
     The Department of Campus Life sponsored the passport game for incoming freshman in which students were to take a booklet containing 15 squares representing different offices around campus and have them stamped.
     “The passport game was tedious, but I learned from it,” Williams said. “I now know my way around campus.”
     The Director of Campus Life, Tom Miles, believes the passport game was a huge success.
     “The game was the Campus Life team’s idea. We want to encourage new students to make contacts. We all thought it would be a fun way of doing that,” said Miles.
     With the success of the passport game, the Campus Life team wants to run the event next year and hopefully, have a car as grand prize.
     “The students are my drivers,” Miles said. “If they love it, we will keep going.”
     Once completed, students qualified to win various prizes including a satellite radio, a TV, a cruise to the Bahamas, gift certificates and the grand prize of free rent at The Village for a year.
     The Housing Department sponsored the grand prize. Executive director of Housing, Larry Christensen, explained the terms behind the prize.
     “Brandon wins a single room space for the 2008-2009 school year and first pick of all available apartments,” said Christensen.
     At the drawing, Williams did not expect to win anything.
“When my name was called, I ran up and almost lost my shoes,” said Williams. “I was so excited I could barely sleep that night.”
     The Village hosts over 750 students living in the one-, two- or four-bedroom apartments. Christensen is excited about the grand prize and happy to contribute to the passport game.
“It’s nice to show students what else is here at GCSU through The Village and all of west campus,” Christensen said.
     A survey asking students what they think about The Village is in the works and will be unveiled soon.
     Williams cannot wait to join the other students at West Campus.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 6 2007. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry