In an effort to make the University Housing system fairer, Housing officials are implementing a new policy initially proposed in October that eliminates the option for students to request the same room or hall that they currently live in for next year.
Instead, Housing is instituting a campus-wide pool in which priority is given to residents who have lived in the residence halls the most consecutive terms. As another change, the entire process will now be completed online.
Last week, Housing officials sent an e-mail to students currently living in University residence halls that included links to informative tutorials on how to sign up.
University Housing spokesman Peter Logan said the new process will be more fair for all current residents who want to live on campus next year.
“This year we’ve eliminated the same room and same hall selection,” Logan said, “and essentially, we’ve broadened this, really, to be more equitable in providing residential choices to all students across the board.”
In the new policy, students will be able to request to live in a single, double, triple or quad. They will also still be able to sign up to live with a particular roommate or group of friends.
However, there are a few exceptions to the new policy because some residence halls are only open to first-year or second-year students or reserved for learning communities.
Logan said that rooms will first be set aside to accommodate the various learning communities, and then the selection process will be opened campus wide.
He added that if a student living in a learning community this year is readmitted to the program next year, they will most likely be in the same hall, but he doesn’t know if they will be able to request the same room.
He added that there will be some adjustments made to the location of certain learning communities due to the closing of Couzens Residence Hall dues to construction and the opening of North Quad next Fall.
The Michigan Community Scholars Program will be moving from Couzens to East Quad and the Global Scholars Program will be relocated from East Quad to North Quad, which Logan said was always “part of the original plan.”
Logan said the University is “confident” that all students who want to remain in a given hall will be able to. He said one “caveat” to that policy will be Stockwell Residence Hall, which houses the Sophomore Year Experience Program.
“That community will be predominantly, by intention, a sophomore year population,” he said. “So not every sophomore now living in Stockwell will have the opportunity to return because, of course, we have to keep it intentionally a sophomore population.”
Logan said in the “long haul” the University feels this process is simply a more equitable way to offer room selection choices to all current residential students.
LSA freshman Jennifer Leung, who is planning on living in Stockwell next year to try the Sophomore Year Experience Program, said she is in favor of the campus-wide pool but believes students should have the right to keep their room for the next year.
LSA sophomore Margaret Moscati said that though she thinks the policy is “more fair,” she preferred a system where students could request their current room for the next year.
“It bothers me that I can’t pick my same room and same hall,” she said. “That’s what I did last year, and it was really convenient.”
LSA freshman Curtis Austin said he would also like to be able to choose a specific room because they all vary in layout and size, but he said he is not opposed to the campus-wide pool.
“A lot of other things are based on seniority — like registering for classes — so it makes sense that housing would also be that way,” Austin said.