Break housing has been a tradition at Eastern for a long period of time, though break housing was recently increased to fours residence halls instead of three.

Mark Hudson, director of housing and dining, said Lincoln, Stevenson and Douglas were the halls that would be open during breaks, but for the last three or four years, Thomas has also been part of the break housing.

“We’ve now added Thomas because we have an increased number of international students, so we needed additional space,” Hudson said.

Hudson said the baseball team also stays in Thomas. They sometimes need to stay on campus during breaks.

“We just decided to give ourselves a little more capacity, so we added a fourth building,” Hudson said.

Students who stay on campus need to sign up and pay the $80 break housing fee, unless they do not live in one of the halls that offer break housing.

Hudson said if students that do not live in the halls with break housing need to stay, they need to talk to Matt Boyer, who coordinated conference housing.

“(Boyer) determines if we have the space to put you in an open room, if we happen to have an open room in those buildings,” Hudson said.

Hudson said people who move into the break housing do not move into an already-occupied space.

Along with the break housing arrangements, Hudson said there will be no food available on campus during Thanksgiving break.

“There’s just not enough bodies to warrant the expense of having a fired-up dining center,” Hudson said.

The cores on the outside doors get changed to a vacation core when it is time for students to go on vacation.

According to Hudson, this means that students will not be allowed into the building unless they signed up for break housing and received the key.

Residence staffing for breaks is done differently than the rest of the semester.

Hudson said that usually one staff member, whether a resident assistant or a graduate assistant, will stay in one of the four buildings so that there is a staff member there to handle anything that may happen.

“If the fire alarm goes off, there is someone there to respond,” Hudson said. “There is a duty structure in place that is not necessarily an RA or a grad from that building, but it’s somebody who is willing to work.”

Staff members who sign up to work during breaks get paid extra because they are staying on campus.

Hudson said there is a possible chance that the residence halls will open early if the football team wins their game this weekend.

According to Hudson, there is the possibility of Eastern hosting the playoff game that would occur the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

“If we do get a playoff game, then we will open the buildings early on Saturday so people can come back and go to the game if they want,” Hudson said. “The unfortunate thing is that we won’t find out until Sunday, so we will put it out on social media and say ‘if you want to come back for the game, you can.’”

Mackenzie Freund can be reached at 581-2812 or at mgfreund@eiu.edu