Southern Village to add three new apartment buildings

Matthew Orquia

News Editor

Three more apartment buildings will be added to Southern Village to increase student housing options, according to Marty Hamilton, senior vice president for Financial Administration. The first building is planned to be ready by fall of 2024 while the second and third are planned for completion soon after.

Southern Village currently has 10 apartment buildings that hold 32 students per building, according to Hamilton. Each new building is expected to cost around $2 million and will hold 32 students.

In addition to the new building, more parking will be added to Southern Village as well, with 13 spots being added this summer. Additional parking is planned for the future, according to Hamilton.

“I'm working on adding some parking as one of the priorities so that we can take some pressure off of students not finding a place to park,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton cited the rising cost of rent for off-campus housing as one of the reasons why having more on-campus housing options is important.

“All the rental rates out here just skyrocketed in the last year. … So, all of a sudden, I think they saw it as more expensive,” Hamilton said. "But, on the positive side, we love to have our students in our campus environment. Hopefully we’re connecting you to friends, programming and activities of one kind or another.”

Developing more student housing is part of Southern Adventist University’s plan to keep up with increasing enrollment, according to Hamilton. Housing pressure is typically highest in fall semesters and drops in winter semesters, so Southern is working to be ready for fall of 2024.

“We're doing everything we can to figure out housing options for our students,” Hamilton said.

Enrollment was up 100 students last year, and based on administration’s projections, Southern is expecting more growth in the upcoming semesters, Hamilton explained. As the university continues to plan housing for the future, he said Southern is moving away from building more residence halls.

“We’ve been migrating to doing more apartment-style living for the upperclassmen,” Hamilton said.

Fight Night

continued from page 1 videographers and graphic designers. D’Avanzo said the event came together quickly, and he predicted that 500 people would come. Gentry predicted 250.

To their surprise, nearly 1,000 individuals attended, said D’Avanzo. Gentry estimates between 50% and 75% of the attendees were Southern students.

When asked how many people they expect to attend this year, Gentry said, “I expect a few hundred to show up, and I’ll be happy with anything else.”

“I like that — humble beginnings,” D’Avanzo responded. “I like to stay humble as well, but we are … very much prepared for the possibility of hitting in the 2,000 range.”

This year, the team expanded and diversified the roster. Twelve individuals are contracted to fight, and about 75% are current Southern students, said Gentry. Last year’s Fight Night featured only male fighters, but this year, female Southern students Destini Evans, freshman public relations major, and Lexi Kaufman, freshman management major, will spar.

One of the fighters is former Southern student Jacob Sarmina. He agreed to partici- pate because he loves boxing.

“I hope when people see me fight, they can see more of what boxing is actually about,” he wrote to the Accent. “Boxing isn’t a sport through a gym downtown, where they’ve been training.

“When they're under that gym, [Fight Night] is officially a sparring event,” D’Avanzo said. “ … It's a sparring match, and all we do is host that sporting event [for] the public.”

Both D’Avanzo and Gentry described Fight Night as a God-oriented event. When asked how Fight Night aligns with Christian values, Gentry said he rejects the idea that a Christian cannot be a boxer, as the Christian community represents a broad spectrum of interests and beliefs.

For most of his childhood, Gentry lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, close to the biggest naval base in the world, located in Norfolk, Virginia.

“My true purpose for this is I wanted to create an environment where people could come together and not have to party,” Gentry said. “ … I think there’s a really big misconception that if you’re going to a Christian college you can’t really have fun, … and I think that’s inaccurate. I want to show that you can have good, clean fun with your friends in different settings and still go to church the next day and feel good about yourself.”

D’Avanzo said the staff and various walks of life together.

“You have a lot of these festivals that go on around school, on campus, off campus, but they're very niche,” Gentry said. “And so is boxing. But I feel like boxing really brings a lot of people together, and it enables a community that normally wouldn't come together to come together. I also think the sport of martial arts is a very important sport to promote because it's self-defense, it's wellness and it's creating a healthy environment for those around you and yourself.” of violence or a barbaric competition of who is crazier in the ring. Boxing is a dance, a very technical sport. Boxing takes dedication and discipline, and it has brought a lot of good to my life.”

The energy surrounding this year’s Fight Night is high, according to D’Avanzo and Gentry.

Like last year, emergency medical technicians will stand near the fighters, an experienced referee will officiate and security guards will patrol to keep the crowd safe and enforce the event’s no-alcohol policy, according to Gentry and D’Avanzo. They said that the twelve boxers, who will wear protective gear, are insured as fighters fighters pray before the event, and Gentry added that he prayed on stage last year. He and D’Avanzo plan to repeat those prayers this year.

“A lot of the big Navy guys, they did martial arts and things like that, and every Saturday they’d come to church and be just as involved as everybody else,” he said.

The town was very secular, Gentry explained, and he struggled with his religion as a Seventh-day Adventist when he couldn’t play football on Friday nights. His hometown experience inspired him to create a martial arts event Adventists could attend that emulates what many young people see as “the college experience” while remaining God-oriented.

Gentry also described Fight Night as unifying. He created the event to bring people from

“[Last year], I remember I would hear a lot of people say, ‘I'll come if I'm free,’” D’Avanzo said. “Whereas this year, it's more so, ‘I'm going to make sure I'm free so I can come.’”

“I don’t really walk anywhere without getting a question about it from people who, sometimes, I haven’t even met yet,” Gentry added.

Editor’s Note: Houston Beckworth, freshman archeology and biblical studies major, contributed to this article by interviewing D’Avanzo and Gentry and sharing the audio and transcripts with the Accent. The Accent also interviewed D’Avanzo and Gentry.