While the UA's Coronado Hall has long been perceived as the university's party pad, the rowdiest dorm dwellers live in Sky View Apartments, disciplinary data show.
The UA-leased apartment complex two blocks south of campus has about one-third the population of Coronado — the institution's largest dormitory — yet its residents had more university violations per capita than any other residence hall.
Students in Sky View averaged nearly 1 1/2 violations for every resident, busted for everything from being too noisy to drinking underage or using drugs, according to an Arizona Daily Star analysis of dormitory disciplinary records for the 2007-08 academic year.
The second-worst hall was Navajo-Pinal Stadium Hall, which had roughly one violation per resident. Arizona-Sonora Hall came in third, with Coronado and Apache-Santa Cruz halls rounding out the top five.
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Still, the analysis showed that, overall, residence hall violations involving alcohol and drugs have been decreasing for several years, which officials attribute to better education and outreach efforts by campus authorities.
Sky View residents said the results of the analysis are surprising — they think the hall is quiet and doesn't deserve the party-dorm moniker.
And officials who manage the UA's residence halls said Sky View's ranking has to do with a combination of factors, including its apartment-style living and the fact that it's two blocks removed from the main campus.
They also point out that total violations for all the halls fluctuate each year as new students move in.
"It's a new group every year, so you start from scratch each time," said Patrick Call, associate director of Residence Life. "That's both exciting and challenging."
While thousands of hall violations are reported each year, the Star analysis looked at only those where officials found students responsible for a violation of the UA's Community Standards policy — rules designed to maintain a safe educational environment.
Rather than using the number of violations alone to determine the rowdiest dorm, the Star divided each hall's number of incidents by its number of residents to establish a rate comparison.
The analysis used three years of data and showed that the level of violations varied widely across campus, though the five rowdiest halls in 2007-08 are all within a few blocks of each other.
While Sky View reported more than one violation per resident last year, Yuma Hall, a small dorm that caters to honors students, averaged 0.03 violations per resident, making it the quietest hall on campus.
La Aldea Graduate and Professional Student Apartments, Gila Hall, Babcock Inn and Yavapai Hall rounded out the bottom five in terms of fewest violations per capita.
Students living in any residence hall can be cited for dozens of violations, including horseplay, loud music, smoking and underage drinking.
The consequences for violating a rule can run from a written warning all the way up to eviction from the hall, with students having the right to appeal in a quasi-judicial process run by UA officials.
Students also can face community service or restitution for damaging property, according to rules outlined by Residence Life, the department that runs the UA's residence halls.
The residence halls at the top of the list in 2007-08 are no strangers to rowdy reputations, disciplinary data show. With a few exceptions, the same dorms have appeared near the top of the list of violations for three years.
That trend is partly because most of those halls have large populations of students, said Page Dunn-Albertie, Residence Life's senior judicial coordinator. That means more people interact — and not necessarily to form study groups.
Sky View's position atop the rankings is because it has characteristics that make it appear similar to larger halls such as Arizona-Sonora and Coronado, said Call, with Residence Life.
"Part of it is Sky View has full-blown apartments and is a couple blocks south of the university," he said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge officials face as they try to curtail certain behaviors in residence halls is that there's about an 80 percent turnover each year as new students move in, Call said.
That causes the number of total violations to fluctuate. Violations increased 16 percent between the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years but decreased by 13 percent in 2007-08, the data show.
Meanwhile, alcohol and drug violations — which account for about a third of total violations — were down 26 percent during the same three-year period.
Officials couldn't directly attribute the decline in drug and alcohol violations to one particular program, saying that the drop involved several efforts on the part of students, Residence Life leaders and the University of Arizona Police Department.
Call said that when it comes to alcohol or drug violations, Residence Life tries to help educate students about the consequences of their activities rather than simply punish them.
"A lot of times what we find is that students don't get their impact on other people until we sit down and talk to them about it," he said. "The rate of recidivism is really low."
Police officials partially attribute the decline to a program in which officers are assigned to individual residence halls and fraternity and sorority houses. The officers check in regularly with student leaders to discuss issues ranging from theft to drinking problems, said Sgt. Juan Alvarez, UAPD spokesman.
Having officers work closely with individual halls creates an environment in which students may know ahead of time that certain behavior isn't permitted, he said.
"I don't have any hard documentation that says why less activity is occurring, but I think what we're seeing is the result of a collaborative effort by the whole campus," Alvarez said.
Sky View residents said that despite the results of the analysis, the complex is quiet.
Mikhail Sundust, a UA sophomore who has lived in Sky View for two years, said he's aware that violations occur — his roommate last year got busted.
"I know it happens, but it's not really noisy," he said. "I really like living there because it's pretty private. If you want to become good friends with your neighbor you can, or you can keep to yourself."
Mike Palffy, a freshman, said Sky View doesn't deserve the reputation normally reserved for halls such as Coronado.
"It's not like a party dorm," he said. "It's actually a really quiet place."
On StarNet: Check out a breakdown of violations at each dorm at azstarnet.com/pdf
top 5 offenders
Residence halls with most violations per resident
2008
1. Sky View Apartments
2. Navajo-Pinal Stadium Hall
3. Arizona-Sonora Hall
4. Coronado Hall
5. Apache-Santa Cruz Hall
2007
1. Arizona-Sonora Hall
2. Sky View Apartments
3. Apache-Santa Cruz Hall
4. Navajo-Pinal Stadium Hall
5. Coronado Hall
2006
1. Arizona-Sonora Hall
2. Coronado Hall
3. Pima House
4. Cochise Hall
5. Sky View Apartments
