Substance Free, Open Draws to Occur Simultaneously

Author: Claire Bourne News Editor

Room Draw 2002, scheduled to begin on Monday, April 1, will be completed in five days rather than over the course of a month, as has been past policy.

In addition, the substance free draws will be conducted simultaneously with open class draws, and social houses will need to fill their beds by April 2 in order for house members to be eligible for open draw.

Block draw has traditionally been held at the beginning of April followed by the substance free draw, senior draw and finally open class draws, which take place toward the end of the month.

Residential Systems Coordinator Mariah McKechnie '01 said the decision to consolidate the process was due in part to the number of students taking advantage of the substance free draw to secure a "good room" early in the process.

The rationale, as it appears in the Simultaneous Substance Free/Open Class Draws proposal, states, "In the past students would play the room draw system by first attempting to draw a substance-free room … If the student did not draw a room of [his or her] liking [he or she] would then proceed to … open class draw several days later. This left students that truly wanted to live on a substance free hall competing with students who only wanted to increase their chances of getting a good room…."

According to the new procedure, when a student's random number is called on the night of his or her class' open draw, he or she will proceed to either the substance free floor plans or to the open draw floor plans.

Students interested in drawing a substance-free room must have attended a substance free informational meeting.

"Eligibility for substance free room draw will be limited to only those students whose names appear on the information session attendance list," the proposal stated.

In addition, students who select the substance free option will be obligated to sign a contract at the time of the draw.

In early November, McKechnie, with help from the Commons Administration Office and Joe Palombo '04, who has been working as a liaison between the student body and the administration, conducted a survey of all students currently living on substance free halls and discovered "wide-ranging opinion about what sub-free means."

McKechnie noted, "This inconsistency is contrary to the goals of the substance free system."Because students will now have to choose between the substance free draw and open draw, "the incentive for non-substance free students to draw into substance free room" will no longer exist, the rationale continued.

Concentrating all aspects of room draw at the beginning of April will also give McKechnie "more time to confirm housing assignments."

Head of Commons Administration and Associate Provost Tim Spears said, "As everybody knows, room draw can be a stressful experience." He explained that "streamlining" the room-draw process was intended to "alleviate those anxieties."

Palombo agreed, saying that the new weeklong process "should be a lot less painful."

The new policy regarding social house room draw states that a social house must submit a full list of residents to McKechnie on April 2 or else members not residing in the house will not qualify for open draw, which begins for rising juniors on April 3.

According to Palombo the policy was constructed with input from the Inter-House Council and the social houses themselves.

McKechnie said that she hoped this step to ensure 100 percent social house occupancy would ease the College's housing crunch by freeing up beds in dormitories.

The new policy, Spears affirmed, will also "give social house leadership a framework to fill their beds."

James Munro '02, current president of Kappa Delta Rho (KDR), defined the policy as "a necessary evil," saying that "social houses are better off when members live there as opposed to non-members.

Perhaps the loss of freedom [of social house members to live where they want] is a sacrifice we make in order to be a member of the house." Some social houses, including KDR, require members to live in the house for at least a semester as a means to guarantee full occupancy. McKechnie admitted that the new policy was still "relatively unknown" and said she expected "some reaction" from membership.