Nearly 60 percent of Mansfield University's 2,900 undergraduates live off campus, many commuting up to an hour each way. While the commuter population has remained steady in recent years, students' expectations for how the institution should serve them have increased, officials here say. When Maravene S. Loeschke became president of Mansfield last year, she started looking for ways to accommodate commuters. This fall the university opened the Commuter Connection: a dormitory wing dedicated to that population. It has a computer lab, two lounges, and seven rooms where students can spend the night. Mansfield's main effort is the Commuter Connection, but the university is trying other things, too: matching commuters with residence-hall floors for social activities, and trying to hold events earlier in the day, when those students are more likely to be on the campus. That way, officials hope, commuters' sense of detachment will be minimized.