Squatting, the room assignment procedure that allows students to remain in the same cluster for the upcoming term, will be expanded to include nearly all residence halls, according to the Office of Residential Life room-draw booklet, released yesterday.
Residents of all clusters except East Wheelock, the River apartments, the River 'tree houses', CFS/affinity housing and all-freshman housing will have the option to choose a room within their present cluster during a separate housing assignment night. Last year, residents of Gold Coast and Massachusetts Row dorms were not eligible to squat.
"We got a lot of complaints about how only certain clusters could squat last year," Interim Director of Housing Rachael Class-Giguere said.
While opening more clusters to squatting will benefit '03s and '04s, rising sophomores in eligible clusters will not be able to squat.
Because sophomores who are housed in freshmen housing their first year aren't able to squat, some thought it would have been unfair to allow the privilege to '05s who lived in mixed housing, Class-Giguere said.
Several students still see the system as unfair, despite the changes.
"Squatting screws people over, but given the opportunity, I would do it because housing really comes down to beating the system," Amanda Behm '04 said.
Andy Schmidt '02 said that squatting perpetuates the luck of some and misfortune of others.
"It takes people who had a good number one year and gives them the same deal the next year," Schmidt said.
The idea behind squatting is to allow communities of people to continue living in an environment they enjoy, Class-Giguere said.
"Our goal is always to let folks live together who want to live together," Class-Giguere said. "It will be interesting to see how many people choose to participate in this option."
She admitted that some students might use the privilege to secure premium housing rather than to conserve their residential community.
"If I squatted, it would be because I wanted a nice room," Behm said.
In another attempt to give students the ability to choose who they live with, floors in the tree houses will be assigned to single-sex rosters of six or eight students who want to reserve a floor. The floors will be assigned by lottery prior to room draw; housing numbers will have no effect on the process.
"We did this partly because we wanted to make the tree houses more desirable, and partly because it will be a way for '05s, whose lower numbers usually make it difficult for them to have much control over their housing, to live with their friends," Class-Giguere said.
For students not interested in either of these options, room draw will function much as it has in previous years. Beginning with the lowest numbers, students will select their rooms at Leede Arena May 6-10.
ORL has made efforts to ensure that the process will run more smoothly than it has in the past. This year, the labels used by students to select rooms will be precut and laid out in alphabetical order.
"That was the thing that held us up most last year," Class-Giguere said. "We are also going to have more info sheets that people can pick up when they come in and read as they wait."
The first two information sessions about room selection will be March 5 at 7 p.m. in the River and 8:30 p.m. in East Wheelock. More sessions will be held during spring term, and a newsletter will be published in early April.
