Beginning this summer, students will be able to request to live in close proximity with up to seven of their friends -- and this is just one of three significant changes in the housing assignment procedures, officially released today.
The new procedures also discourage underclass students from buying housing priority numbers from upperclassmen, and they mandate virtually all singles in the Choates residence cluster be reserved for upperclassmen.
Associate Dean of Residential Life Bud Beatty said students supplied the ideas for the new housing procedures, the text of which was included along with students' housing priority numbers in today's Hinman mail.
"I always contend that [students] have some of the greatest ideas because they live it," Beatty said.
The re-tooled housing procedures were approved by an ad-hoc Office of Residential Life committee on housing, which was comprised of Beatty and several students, among others.
While these changes make no additional beds available to ease the current housing crunch, Beatty said he hopes it will make living in residence halls more desirable to upperclass students.
A group mentality
Beatty said the new system would allow groups of up to eight friends to be housed on the same floor, or in the same building or cluster.
"It will create little communities within the residential system to create continuity within the year," he said.
Students will also have a greater opportunity to pull other students into vacancies in their group of rooms. This will create more flexibility in the types of rooms that students can be pulled into, Beatty said.
Beatty said that he anticipates that the new system will ease upperclassmen's re-entry into the College's residential life after their off-terms.
Under the current system, students returning to campus after off-terms often find difficulties getting a single room, or end up assigned to live in a double or triple with random roommates.
Beatty said students returning to campus, especially after Fall term, often "don't make an investment in the cluster" because they come back to a residential hall and a room situation where they may not know anyone around them.
He said he hopes that the group housing idea will "offset some of the realities" of the Dartmouth Plan and make students "more inclined to be more active" in residential life.
"What really separates Dartmouth from other schools is the D-Plan," according to Jeff Fine '99, a member of the ad-hoc committee. "As much as it makes Dartmouth 'Dartmouth,' it also deters a sense of community in the residence halls."
Most students received the new assignment procedures as a positive change.
Rex Morey '99 said the new rules "will add a lot of continuity and keep friends together," he said.
"I think its definitely a good idea, especially if you're in a place like the Choates where no one ever comes to visit," Ben Berk '00 said. He said being able to have friends in close proximity "is definitely a plus."
But not all students were of the same mind.
Noel Paladin-Tripp '99 said he personally preferred "the random draw."
"It's not like you are not going to see your friends. It's not like an upperclassman returning to campus would be isolated," he said.
Cracking down
A second change in the housing procedures will prohibit students in different classes from living together Fall term.
Beatty said this change is designed to stop underclassmen from buying housing numbers from upperclassmen and then paying the $300 fine for the upperclassman to cancel their housing contract.
Students that have legitimate reasons for requesting to live with upperclassmen will still be able to petition the Office of Residential Life to do so, Beatty said.
If students' petitions are accepted, they must remain in the assigned room together -- and pulling out of this type of housing situation will result in the forfeit of the entire term's housing charge, Beatty said.
"We don't really want you applying for housing unless you're serious about living on campus," Beatty said.
Fine said buying and selling housing numbers is a major concern because students "who are playing by the rules are getting worse rooms."
He added that prohibiting number switching also makes the housing wait list more reasonable. When housing spaces are temporarily occupied by upperclassmen who intend on selling their number and then vacating their room, it increases the number of students that are placed on the wait list for housing, Fine said.
Although most of these students are later housed by ORL, it creates undue concern among these students based on an unrealistic impression of their position on the wait list, he said.
Beatty said students should not panic about their housing situations.
"Even if your number is a high number," he said, "that doesn't mean that we won't be able to house you."
Andrea Arata '98, another member of the ad-hoc committee, said the new procedures will help the sophomore class -- the group that was victimized most by the selling of priority numbers.
"I think that with the new procedure, it will allow for a more realistic wait list instead of all the seniors canceling housing," she said. "It will actually help the sophomores."
Beatty said that ORL was also concerned with "leveling the playing field," to keep students with the greatest financial means from being able to circumvent the housing assignment lottery number process by simply paying the $300 fine.
"If someone is on financial aid, they can't afford to pay someone's cancellation fee," Fine said. "Someone who is better off [financially] can cheat the system."
Erica Thrall '98 said she was unaware of the practice of buying and selling housing assignment numbers but it "sounds like it was kind of unfair."
But Paladin-Tripp said he never felt cheated by friends that bought numbers to obtain better housing than his.
Community in the Choates
The third major housing change that will be occurring is the alteration of room assignments for the Choates.
Beginning next fall, only continuing upperclass students will be assigned singles in the Choates.
Fine said currently, two sophomore friends can each apply for singles, yet one might end up in the River Cluster and one in the Choates.
But under the new system, "sophomores who want singles will be able to live in the Choates with their friends."
Seventy-three one-room doubles will be reserved for freshmen, and 108 of the 112 singles in the Choates will be available for upperclass students.
In order to preserve undergraduate advisor groups on the third floors of Bissell, Cohen and Little Halls, four singles will be assigned to freshmen, Beatty said.
