by Anonymous<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my four years at Centre, I have experienced changes both big and small, for better and worse, necessary and unnecessary. Some of these changes are recent, like the switch to Workday. Others are older, like the switch to Parkhurst dining, for which my year was the first to experience it. Many of these changes I have complained about, sometimes praised, with my friends. But there\u2019s one I want to discuss today, as someone recently freed of it: the Housing Lottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Current students know the Housing Lottery feels a bit like the Hunger Games, rushing to complete applications first, and not at all sure how it works. But it wasn\u2019t always like this. I understand why the old paper and pen method didn\u2019t work, and was inefficient to continue to support on a growing campus. But today I\u2019m going to make the case for the way the housing lottery system used to be formatted. Because I think younger students need to know exactly what they\u2019ve lost in the switch to erezlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember my freshman year, when I was so lucky to get a good lottery number. The entire grade was randomly assigned a number, and were called up in order to a table to select their housing. Roommate pairs went based on the earlier person\u2019s number. I was lucky enough to get a single digit my freshman year, and I remember the excitement at being able to get one of the recently renovated Lamotte-Tyler dorms. But what about all the suites, Brocks, 5th streets, St. Mildreds, and other special layouts that fill up first?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, they\u2019re why I think we should bring back the old housing lottery format. My freshman year, all of those special dorms requiring 4-5+ people had separate lotteries. On different days in March, groups of students submitted applications for those dorms individually, in person, at RLO. One day the 5th Streets would become available, the next the four person Brocks, then the five persons, etc. Groups of all-seniors had more weight in the applications, and when multiple groups of seniors applied, the selection was randomized. This kept things fair, it meant everyone who wanted to try their luck for a special style of dorm could do that, while still having the doubles as a back up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why can\u2019t this format be adopted to the virtual system? The current one makes it harder to get a good dorm if your first option falls through, and you\u2019re scrambling to make a new roommate group with an adequate number of people. The old method gave students days or weeks to adapt to disappointment, then move on and focus on getting a good double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seniors still got first pick of the doubles, meaning no matter what, you were guaranteed one of your first picks as a senior. This system was also straightforward and easy to understand. If you didn\u2019t get a good number in the lottery this year, you would probably do better next year, or your roommate could. If you didn\u2019t get a Brock, next week you could put in for a Pearl or Old Quad suite. There were multiple chances and mechanisms to ensure housing was fair and comprehensible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, the opacity of the virtual system, the rush and pressure, makes people feel less in-control. It\u2019s about your loading times and how fast you can fill out the forms. You know that someone else might be going for the same exact room at the same time. You worry that even as a senior you might be stuck in a terrible double because your first choice fell through. This isn\u2019t even mentioning the way that now people abroad get no choice in their dorm, or how disabled students are completely at the mercy of RLO, getting no choice at all. This, I think, speaks to a larger problem within the changes at RLO, and Centre as a whole: transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lack of communication from RLO has been consistent across my four years. I have friends who learned first-hand why you should get any promises in writing or email before taking it as a fact, especially if you have a disability. I have also heard my friends tell story after story of problems with housing: mold, broken HVAC, leaky windows, cockroaches and few or consistently broken washing machines. Usually when these problems appear, it never feels like RLO knows or even cares about it. You tell your RA, they say they sent an email, but it never goes anywhere. Or maybe you get lucky and a repairman randomly enters your room at seven in the morning while you\u2019re asleep. The least RLO can do is email you that they know about it, or tell you when they expect someone to come fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent emails explaining how washing machines get repaired by a third party, or that all the HVAC in buildings is old and needs replacement, are a start. But what is Centre doing to fix it? Why are we offloading all the responsibility for managing the campus that 98% of students live on to third parties without mechanisms for accountability? Why do these offices let themselves get so powerless that student dissatisfaction can\u2019t even be addressed head on? Maybe it would take Jess and Julie actually living in these dorms with us to get them fixed. Hell, I\u2019d even take P Milly as my neighbor if it meant all of my washing machines worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Anonymous In my four years at Centre, I have experienced changes both big and small, for better and worse, necessary and unnecessary. Some of these changes are recent, like the switch to Workday. Others are older, like the switch to Parkhurst dining, for which my year was the first to experience it. Many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9368,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9367\/revisions\/9368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}