By Dec. 19, the last day of final exams, most Eastern students had already fled Charleston, racing down Interstate 57 to celebrate the holidays with families and friends. That night, Brian Bellott fell asleep in room 115 of Douglas Hall on the bottom bunk of a bed, across from his Xbox and television and below two lab goggles hanging from the thermostat.

He would sleep in that bed for the next 21 nights, including Christmas and New Year’s. So uninhabited was his residence hall at times that Bellott, a senior chemistry major who wears shorts all year long, said, it was “just me and the walls.”

For many students the three-week holiday break that ended yesterday could not have come any sooner, but a very small number chose to stay here for $65 a week in the Lincoln-Stevenson-Douglas complex. Their prize: a desolate campus where the parking lots were empty and cars weren’t roaming the streets, where all the dining halls were closed and where the ultimate source of fun was a trip to Wal-Mart.

Still, students like Bellott stayed on campus for various time-demanding reasons, such as athletics, classroom research, student teaching or work obligations.

Of the more than 4,100 on-campus students, only 22 requested housing during the holiday break sandwiched between the fall and spring semesters. Fifteen of those students play on the men’s or women’s basketball team. Two of the remaining seven are international students.

“I wouldn’t like to be here during that time,” said Matt Boyer, the housing office employee in charge of handling holiday break arrangements. “It would be a little eerie for me. It’s a quiet campus where nothing is going on.”

That is why most students venture home. At Western Illinois University, an estimated 30 students requested holiday-break housing, while more than 200 students at Southern Illinois University didn’t go home.

Some 1.8 million college students live on-campus, according to Association of College and University Housing Officers’ numbers, but fewer than 10 percent stay over break, speculates Jack Collins, president of the organization that has more than 900 members in the United States, Australia, England and Canada.

Friends say student stays all year

So what can one do when the university’s 11,522 students leave? In most cases, the answer was similar to what many students did at their families’ homes – they relaxed by watching movies, sleeping and socializing with friends.

Bellott, 21, may have been the exception. Needing to do some catch-up work after a semester of demanding inorganic chemistry classes, he sorted through three milk crates worth of disheveled paper, completed 28-page graduate school applications and conducted research experiments in the Physical Science building. By his estimation, 90 percent of the time Bellott was awake – usually 20 hours or more each day – was spent working.

“I’m not a workaholic,” he says, “I’m just busy.”

Not leaving the confines of Eastern is not unusual for him: Bellott stayed here last summer and during the Thanksgiving break as well. Bellott’s friends joke he lives in Charleston 365 days a year. Not quite. At the urging of his mother, Bellott returned to Streator, a town of 14,000 in the middle of Illinois, on Christmas day only to return to Charleston later that night.

It is not that Bellott is an antisocial person, however.

He said he met 12 new people over the three-week break, and when he walked by three Building Service Workers in the foyer of Douglas Hall, the all-male residence hall housing 200 students on four floors, the men exchanged warm pleasantries.

“Those are my guys – they take care of me,” Bellott said.

Break critical for basketball teams

The season of giving was not too rewarding for the men and women’s basketball teams, combining for two wins in 11 games. Yet Rick Samuels, the head coach of the men’s team, said the break was necessary because the end of the fall semester also represents the middle of the basketball season.

With no distractions from other students and class, the three weeks is the last time the coaches will have their players’ undivided attention. During many days, the men and women’s teams practiced twice.

“The only reason to get up was for basketball,” said Melanie Ploger, a freshman guard on the women’s team. “We would have slept all day if we could have.”

But they didn’t. Instead, the teams spent time together as a group. The women’s team gathered at the houses of players living off-campus. The men’s team went bowling one night and saw the movie, “Elf,” on another.

“Those were designed to help build team unity and have some fun away from the court,” Samuels said. “But we also wanted to break up the loneliness of not having anyone else on campus.”

Other popular places to hang out included McDonald’s and Taco Bell. With the campus’ five dining halls and university Food Court closed, the players had little alternatives for food. Additional free time, men’s team forward David Roos, a senior, said, was spent playing video games like Madden football and NBA Live.

After a road game Dec. 23 at Ohio State, the men’s basketball players went home until Dec. 27. The women’s team received a break from Dec. 22 to 26, starting after its game against Northeastern.

“The kids who start to come back right now, they’re ready to come back,” Roos said. “They’re bored from being at home and are ready to get back to college. They’re ready to come back and we’ve been here the whole time.”

From home to Home Depot to Wal-Mart

John Thorsen left home to go home – Home Depot that is. The senior business management major and former Panther basketball player returned a week early from the holiday break, on Jan. 5, because he could only receive two weeks off.

Despite working a 40-hour workweek, Thorsen, who works in the electrical department at Home Depot, was bored.

“When there’s really nothing to do, Wal-Mart is always a big option. You can always find something to do at Wal-Mart,” Thorsen said.

He recalled his recent four-hour visit to the store, looking at every single thing, playing in the toy section and reading magazines.

“It’s really weird walking around (campus) and not seeing anybody,” Thorsen said. “It’s actually kind of depressing. Wal-Mart is really the only place you see people.”

But staying on a lonely campus is justified by the task at hand. For the 22 students who remained, their sacrifice was worth it, even if they had to travel to Wal-Mart or McDonald’s to see more than a few people. They stayed for the sake of a team, for the sake of research, or for the sake of Home Depot.

When asked what advice he’d give to a student contemplating staying over break, Thorsen said, “I’d first ask, ‘Why?'”

Why? These students all had answers for that question.

On this chilly Friday morning, Bellott wears gym shorts that have Phi Sigma Pi – Eastern’s honor’s fraternity – labeled on the back. He requested to answer questions now, not later, wanting to pick up his textbooks then scoot back to the Physical Science building.

He had good reason to stay here, just as the other 21 students did. There were no reasons to feel sorry for them. They weren’t left behind or forgotten. They knew what they were getting into.

And, of course, there were some perks.

“I’m so used to (the team) having the dorm to ourselves, the showers and the bathrooms,” Ploger said. “Already, it’s getting sort of annoying (as others return). We never locked our doors. We left our doors open; everything was ours.”