Laura Dulski has spent nearly two decades in higher ed across four-year, two-year, public, private, and community college institutions — and in that time, she’s used nearly every major housing software platform. Going into her fourth academic year at Keuka College in Keuka Park, New York, Laura’s perspective is unusually broad: she knows what “good enough” looks like, what “best-in-class” feels like, and what questions matter most when a housing team is trying to serve students with limited time and resources.

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Laura Dulski

Assistant Dean of Campus Life, Keuka College

Keuka College is a small campus community — roughly 1100+ students — and like many institutions, housing operations have evolved over time. This is the story of Keuka College’s search for a system that could meet the basics, support a lean team, and keep improving without forcing the institution to bend around the software.

When Visibility Was Missing

When Laura arrived at Keuka College, the housing operation ran on spreadsheets. An IT team member, Andrew, built a homegrown system that worked — but it wasn’t purpose-built for housing. The team needed something that could reliably handle the fundamentals: where students live, occupancy tracking, and billing.

Eventually, Keuka College brought on another vendor before Housing.Cloud. But core needs still went unmet — most critically, the ability to run a basic occupancy report.

“It feels like the bare minimum, most basic thing any housing software should have. I had no idea what beds were open.”

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Laura Dulski

Assistant Dean of Campus Life, Keuka College

In a role where every decision depends on visibility into bed inventory, that gap made day-to-day work harder than it needed to be. It was clear a change was needed.

Knowing What to Look For

Laura did extensive research. With a career spanning many institution types, she had a clear sense of what to look for — and what to avoid.

She heard candid stories from peers about common industry pain points: gaps between sales promises and delivery, slow customer service, and institutions having to reshape their processes around the software rather than the other way around.

Housing.Cloud came up through a trusted colleague at a nearby institution that had recently switched. The recommendation was simple and powerful: the customer service is amazing.

But what sealed it was follow-through.

“Other companies gave us a sales pitch and then we never heard from them again. Housing.Cloud stayed in touch.”

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Laura Dulski

Assistant Dean of Campus Life, Keuka College

John from Housing.Cloud’s engineering team had a detailed technical conversation with Keuka College’s IT team about integration. And Laura asked a question that mattered more than any feature demo:

“What is your staffing structure?”

After what she’d been through, knowing support would actually be there — consistently, and with the right coverage — was the deciding factor.

We’re Not Leaving

The difference was immediate. The core capability that had been missing — occupancy reporting — just worked. The team could finally see all beds, who was where, and what was open.

Document management moved into one centralized place. Commuter tracking is being built out properly. Room condition reports and key tracking — previously managed on a facilities spreadsheet — are now in Housing.Cloud.

And then there’s Andrew. The IT team member who built Keuka College’s original homegrown system impressed the Housing.Cloud team so much during integration that they offered Andrew a job. Andrew now works at Housing.Cloud — and still meets with the Keuka College team weekly.

“I forget he doesn’t work here,” Laura laughs. “We say, ‘oh, we’re meeting with Andrew,’ and they’re like, ‘he doesn’t work here.’ ‘Oh, he’s with Housing.Cloud.’”

And when Laura sums up the decision and the experience:

“We’re not leaving.”

Frequent Product Enhancements, Real Impact

Laura describes Housing.Cloud’s product updates as frequent, ongoing enhancements — steady improvements that make everyday work easier without overwhelming busy teams.

Coming from an experience where asking a question could feel discouraging, Housing.Cloud makes Laura feel heard.

“Housing.Cloud makes you feel heard. Anything we bring, it’s worked on and they reinsure us, ‘we integrated it.’ That feels so good.”

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Laura Dulski

Assistant Dean of Campus Life, Keuka College

A recent example is the ability to unhold beds and place students directly from the occupancy graph — without switching screens.

“They can unhold beds right from the occupancy graph and place students right on it. We don’t have to go to a different window or open a different screen.”

The commuter management buildout is another prime example of feedback becoming real product development. Laura also calls out one communication format in particular as especially useful: Evan Jones from the Housing.Cloud customer success team and his bullet-style update emails.

“The emails that are easily laid out, ‘here’s all the bullets of the topic’ — those are really helpful.”

Talk to People You Trust

Laura’s advice for peers considering a switch is practical.

First: define your bare minimum needs versus your goal needs before evaluating any product.

Second: sit with a partner institution and actually see the product in use before committing.

“A lot of times we’re recommended to, ‘here’s a list of schools that use us.’ And all I can think is, okay, but I don’t know these people.”

Trusted colleagues — people you’ve known your entire career — can give you a level of confidence that a sales pitch never can.

Third: prioritize customer service as a top evaluation criterion, especially for smaller institutions.

“We’re very small. We know we’re going to need support.”