University of Rochester's Housing Renaissance: Creating More Time for Students Through Smarter Housing Operations

From Paper Processes to Student-Focused Housing

Just a couple years ago, housing operations at the University of Rochester looked very different than they do today.

Incoming students mailed paper housing contracts to campus. Room change requests were managed through PDF forms. Housing staff relied on spreadsheets, shared drives, and manual tracking processes to manage everything from applications to occupancy changes. Important information often lived in multiple places, requiring significant staff time to maintain accuracy and answer student questions.

Each year, approximately 2,000 paper housing contracts moved through the Office of Residential Life & Housing Services. Staff manually tracked submissions, monitored cancellations, and maintained physical filing systems throughout the department. During peak periods, paperwork filled offices and administrative work consumed valuable time that could have been spent supporting students.

As student expectations evolved and operational complexity increased, the University recognized an opportunity to modernize its housing experience.

"We all knew change needed to happen," said Lindsay Karback, Housing Operations at the University of Rochester. “Our current housing system was being phased out and it was another reason to start looking at newer systems as well.”

In 2024, the University implemented StarRez, replacing many of its manual processes with centralized workflows, automated communications, and self-service tools. While the technology itself was important, the larger goal was much simpler: spend less time managing paperwork and more time supporting students.

Building a One-Stop Housing Experience

One of the first priorities was creating a single destination for all housing-related processes.

Previously, applications, room changes, special requests, and seasonal housing processes often existed across multiple systems and webpages. Students might encounter Google Forms, PDFs, website links, and separate instructions depending on what they were trying to accomplish.

That fragmentation created confusion for both students and staff.

Today, the University has consolidated many of those processes into StarRez. Housing applications, room change requests, waitlists, winter housing requests, and summer housing processes now exist within a single, unified platform.

The result is a more consistent experience for students and a more manageable operation for staff.

The benefits extend beyond convenience. Centralizing processes has improved visibility, reporting, and collaboration across the housing team. Instead of searching through folders, spreadsheets, or outdated links, staff know where to find information and can confidently direct students to a single location.

"All staff members are very comfortable using StarRez now. Processes are centralized, information is easy to find, and everyone is working from the same source of truth."

— Lindsay Karback, Housing Operations, University of Rochester

Eliminating Administrative Burden

Perhaps the most significant operational improvement has been the elimination of paper-based contract management.

Before StarRez, first-year housing contracts required extensive manual effort. Staff tracked every submission by hand, maintained printed lists, and monitored application statuses throughout the housing cycle.

Today, those same processes are largely automated.

Contracts are submitted digitally. Status updates occur automatically. Staff no longer spend hours reconciling paperwork or searching for missing forms.

Karback estimates that approximately 95% of the time previously spent managing housing contracts has been eliminated.

"Now we don't even have to keep track of our contracts anymore," she said. "We don't have to go through and highlight who's been received, who's been canceled. It updates automatically."

The time savings have allowed the housing team to redirect its energy toward higher-value work.

" Now that everything is managed digitally through StarRez, we have the time to focus on the student experience side of it, making sure it's accessible and inclusive for them."

— Lindsay Karback, Housing Operations, University of Rochester

Making Housing Selection Easier for Students

The impact of StarRez has been especially noticeable during housing lottery season.

Historically, the housing office expected long lines of students with questions, concerns, and troubleshooting requests. Staff often brought in additional support to help manage the volume.

"We would probably have a line of about 20 students out the door with questions," said Karback. After moving housing selection processes into StarRez, those lines largely disappeared.

"It has been so quiet in our office during lottery season," she said.

The reduction in questions is largely attributed to improved communication and greater flexibility within the student portal. Unlike previous systems, housing staff can directly manage and customize the information students see, allowing them to clarify processes and make updates quickly.

Students arrive at housing selection better informed and with a clearer understanding of their options. "We've received a good amount of feedback from students that the process is much clearer now," said Karback.

Eliminating Hundreds of Room Change Requests

Another major improvement came from redesigning how students select rooms within suites and apartments.

Previously, students could select a suite or apartment but not necessarily the specific room they wanted within that unit. As a result, the housing office routinely received between 100 and 200 room change requests after housing selection.

Many of those requests were not true room changes. Students simply wanted to swap bedrooms within their existing suite.

Managing those requests created a significant administrative burden. Multiple students had to submit forms, staff needed to track approvals, and processing often stretched across weeks.

Today, students can select their exact room placement during housing selection. The result has been the near elimination of those requests.

Beyond the operational efficiency, the University now has better visibility into the room change requests that do occur. Housing staff can more easily identify trends and understand why students want to move, helping them address underlying concerns related to facilities, location, or community dynamics.

Creating More Inclusive Housing Experiences

The efficiencies gained through StarRez have also enabled the University to invest more time in student-centered initiatives, including gender-inclusive housing.

Previously, students interested in gender-inclusive housing were expected to initiate conversations with the housing office themselves. While the University wanted to expand and improve those processes, administrative demands often limited the team's capacity.

"Gender-inclusive housing was always something that was on the forefront of our mind, but we just never really had the time, until StarRez."

— Lindsay Karback, Housing Operations, University of Rochester

Today, custom fields and more flexible application processes allow students to share housing preferences  like these directly within the system. Housing staff can proactively engage students, better understand their needs, and create more personalized residential experiences.

"Now we can proactively reach out when we see a student include a note about who they'd like to live with," Karback explained.

By reducing administrative workload, the University has been able to devote more attention to creating living environments where students feel comfortable, supported, and connected.

University of Rochester's Forward-Looking Plan with StarRez

While the University has already transformed many of its core housing processes, they are excited to continue building and optimizing workflows within StarRez.

The housing team is expanding automation, refining graduate housing workflows, exploring additional waitlist functionality, and continuing to align processes across undergraduate and graduate populations. Shared reporting, automated communications, and data-driven workflows are helping departments collaborate more effectively than ever before.

For the University, however, the most meaningful outcome is not finally having a housing office free of piles of paper forms, it is the ability to focus more fully on the student experience.

The mission of the Residential Life team has always been to help students build community, develop independence, and thrive throughout their time at Rochester. By eliminating thousands of paper forms, reducing manual processes, and centralizing housing operations, the University has created more capacity to pursue that mission.

"StarRez is really helping us save time that used to be allotted for admin processes. Now we can really focus on the bread and butter of what we're about the student experience."

— Lindsay Karback, Housing Operations, University of Rochester

And at the University of Rochester, that means helping students feel at home from the moment they apply for housing through the day they move out.

See how StaRez can enable your team to keep human connections at the center of all you do.