Life on the Island, Living at the Island University in the 2000's

Introduction

This digital exhibit demonstrates what life looked like at the Island University between 1994 and 2009. During that time at TAMU-CC, the residence experience was under a privatized company known as "Camden Living". Camden Living provided the Islanders with the ability to live at the Miramar Campus located on the Eastern part of Ward Island. The Miramar Campus comprises 16 different residential buildings, offering traditional residence halls, as well as studio apartments, allowing students to choose their living style according to their preference. Having the ability to live on Campus allowed students to get involved in leadership opportunities, campus recreation, and along with places to relax.

The items within this digital exhibit represent what Life looked on the University Island within the early 2000's along with the qualitative data collected from a residential questionaire. This exhibit utilizes images from the TAMU-CC Yearbooks "The Tide" from 2001 & 2002. This Exhibit also takes a look at Qualitative Data from the Camden Living Experience of the Miramar Campus from 2007-2009, reporting the feedback from the students and their own views of their experience.

Student Group Photo with a Suite Style Bathroom in 2001

Yearbook Evidence

In 2001 "The Tide" represents that students that were living in islander housing had involvement and social interactions with each other. This image represents that students had a sense of belonging in the community and had a good time. There goes to show a black bucket that looks like it is for a Halloween party of some sort along with the students wearing Leias. This also proves in 2001 there were no rules with men and women having restriction on visiting each other within their halls. This was taken within a suite-style residence hall in 2001 which are still being used today within Islander Housing. As we can also see, there were no restrictions towards having guest over of a different gender or anything so this indicates of a laxed residential experience where these sorts of social interactions were encouraged.

Atmosphere

On this page with the "The Tide" in 2001 this page is titled "Carpe Diem!" which means seize the day and you can see images of students facing off with large boxing gloves, foam paddles and climibing wall. Within the text, the language being used is trying to be humerous around students who were living on the Island and had difficulties with their roommates. Within the center box, it states, "Has your roommate been leaving dirty dishes around for you to clean? You can punch their lights out with oversized boxing gloves!" Using this language normalizes having issues you may have with your roommates and align with stress reileif about getting involved on campus with the provided activites. In 2001, TAMU-CC adding this page goes to show their was a vibrant residential community on the Island and students having fun.

Recreation

In the "The Tide" 2001 we can observe that students were engaging in recreational sports and using the lawns around the residence halls. This prooves student engagement during that time. We can observe students engaging in some baseball and flag football.

In these photos from "The Tide" 2002, we can observe students engaging with recreational sports blowing off steam from classes. This goes to show there was a collaboration between the recreational sports and residence life to promote engagment. There were signs of recreational softball and lacrosse near the residential facilities.

Student at Miramar pool party

TAMU-CC Residential Experience 2007-2009

This PDF from 2009 represents the results of a Resident Staisfaction questionaire, and going into detail of what the metrics looks liked on campus.

Data & Metrics

The 2009 Camden Miramar Resident Survey, goes into details about the living conditions of the years 2007-2009 as well as giving the signifigance on how the Residential Experience was formed on the Island University. This document highlights the beginning of a Residence Life Program and aligning with Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education(CAS). CAS was the beginning for the residential experience in having standards and assestments to gain a overview of their metrics and the quality of life the residential population had. This document provides evidence that TAMU-CC had the vision to be able to provide a residential community to be able to serve the students of TAMU-CC. Within the document, there goes for a call of a protest in 1998 where many changes came to the campus and the residence life program was a part of that change. This questionaire that was sent out to students was collecting qualitative data in regards to office staff, residence life staff and the maintenance staff. Within the comments we can see their was issues or a preception of the Office staff not caring about the student or they addressed "Camden" being a issue.

Whats Next?

TAMU-CC is continuing to evolve within their Housing practices, and no longer being part of a P3 company such as "Cameden Living Experience" TAMU-CC has made the decision to towards brining in University Experience Housing professionals. Given from the experience taken in "The Tide 2001 &2002" and in the "Miramar Resident Survey" TAMU-CC is looking to create a experence to be able to address the issues that were in the past. Within the qualitative data of the Resident Survey we can observe within the maintenance portion that the students were having issues with their HVAC's, maintenance and general repairs needed aroung their residence halls. We also were able to observe the atmosphere around roommate situations making fun of the issues that rise within the residents and using language to make fun in order to get students involved within campus activites. In 2014 TAMU-CC made the decision to invest within another company to manage the properties at their Miramar Campus and their soon to be Momentum Village.

Yelp Review: (Click Here)

These reviews shows us how the next P3 Company came into ownership of the TAMU-CC properties. They built the Momentum Village residential apartments within 2014 and managed them for about 9 years. These review capture the expeierence they were providing to the students. Within the review we can see that Momentum Village was not university-owned housing, which means standards, oversight, and resident protections may differ from university owned experience. The complaints (safety, maintenance, staff issues) underscore the potential drawbacks when students rely on private housing affiliates rather than university-managed residences.

Good Yelp Review

Conclusion

In 2023 TAMU-CC made the executive decision to buy out the real estate and manage their own housing program under the Universities Leadership. They made the decision to higher university housing experience leaders to come in and make their own expereience that they are able to control. Within purchasing the properties the University has slowly but surely making changes within the state of housing and restroing the image of Islander Housing. Challenges to come of uncovering WHAT the experieence was years prior, figuiring out the conditions of the residential builidings, and financially recovering of this expense. Utilzing images from the past, qualitative data and metrics that were collected along with now conducting our own surveys within housing and being more prestent within the campus community, Islander Housing will be able to deliver on the experience students have been hoping for. Looking basck at the feedback students are giving back, conducting evaluations of the facilities of the buildings and focusing on student experience and being all in to deliver the experience students deserve.

References:

RG 24: Division of Institutional Advancement, Marketing and Communications Department Record Group, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Yearbooks

Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness. (2009). Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi and Camden Miramar Apartments & Residence Halls: Campus resident survey frequency report (Prepared by T. Ybarra).

Yelp. (n.d.). Search results for “Momentum Village”, Corpus Christi, TX. Retrieved November 30, 2025, from https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=momentum+village+&find_loc=Corpus+Christi%2C+TX