The Student Assembly is working to combat the College's Fall term housing shortage by creating a BlitzMail bulletin to help students find off-campus roommates.
Summer Assembly President Grace Chionuma '96 said she is going to invite representatives from the Admissions Office, the Office of Residential Life and the Registrar to discuss the reasons for the housing shortage at the Assembly's next meeting.
Chionuma said one problem is there is a lack of communication between the three offices and each one is blaming the other for the problem.
She said ORL says "there's not much they can do," because of the limited physical space on campus. Currently around 3,900 students are scheduled to be on campus in the fall.
There are more than 200 students on the wait list for College housing this fall, and Chionuma said about 100 to 140 people will be "homeless."
Many Assembly members said the College's long term plan should include the construction of a new dorm.
But Assembly Vice President Jesse Russell '96 said the administration currently does not have funds allocated to build a new dorm.
"They don't just have capital hanging around," he said.
Assembly member Kishan Putta '96 said the Assembly should try to get the Registrar to limit enrollment for certain terms.
Other Assembly members said the College should let anyone who wants to be on in a given term enroll.
Instead, they argued that the College should guarantee housing for all its students.
"Our job is to advocate the absolute best position for the students," Mark Ciccirelli '96 said. "We should ... have enough beds to house people on campus. If [the College] gives a fiscal reason why we can't do that, we'll work on a solution to it."
Chionuma said the Assembly should push for some kind of temporary solution, and recommended that the Assembly ask the administration to pay someone to help students look for off-campus housing.
She also said a BlitzMail bulletin would "provide opportunity for people looking for roommates."
At the meeting, Chionuma also suggested the idea of forming a committee made up of administrators, faculty and students to look into the D-Plan.
"This is actually something the administration wants to look into," she said. "What types of effects the D-Plan has on community, are they positive or negative, and what's the feasibility of implementing a new system."
Such a committee would also include Dean of the Faculty James Wright and Vice President and Treasurer Lynn Hutton, she said. Chionuma added that if the Assembly does not work to form the committee, the administration might do it with less student input.
She said her personal opinion is that "it is somewhat more difficult to form relations with people here" because of the D-Plan.
The Assembly is also going to invite Associate Director of Dining Services Tucker Rossiter to talk to the Assembly about Dartmouth Dining Services' prices and profits.
The Assembly is continuing work on its course guide. Dave Gershenson '96 said the course guide should be ready by the fall.
The Assembly debated how to distribute the course guide, and decided it would print 2,500 copies to give to every freshman and sophomore and have others on reserve in Baker Library.
