Draw Reform Promotes Commons Equity

Author: Anne Jennings

Residential Systems Coordinator Mariah McKechnie '01 presented a new room draw plan to Community Council Tuesday. Although particulars of the new system are still being discussed, the changes will go into effect during this year's room draw. The new plan will "redistribute block housing evenly among the five commons," said McKechnie, in an attempt to equalize housing for students, particularly seniors, in all commons. Each commons will also have an equal distribution of beds in its block housing, with three, four, five and six bedroom blocks available in the same quantity to each commons.

"The plan comes as a reaction to [President John] McCardell's decision to limit housing in LaForce Hall only to those students who are in Ross Commons," stated McKechnie. LaForce Hall, composed mainly of quads and apartments for seniors, would give Ross Commons seniors an unfair housing advantage in block draw.

McKechnie seeks to remedy this problem by assigning block housing to commons. The decision of which blocks (houses, quads and block rooms) will be assigned to which commons will occur "most likely by March 1," said McKechnie. There is still deliberation over whether the administration, the Student Government Association or some student representative body will make these decisions.

Also under the plan, Junior Counselors (JCs) will not be given a priority number in block draw. By giving priority numbers to JCs in block draw, we "might as well just assign JCs to all the blocks," said McKechnie.

Discussion of this particular issue is still going on, and two plans are being considered. The first, part of McKechnie's original plan, proposes that JCs be given a "random number for the block draw and a priority number for the open draw." The second option, proposed by Community Council member Kevin King '02, would give JCs more than one random room draw number of which they would choose the lowest, thereby giving them better chances in both the block and open draws.

These ideas, along with the question of who will decide which blocks go to which commons will soon be presented to the commons deans for consideration.

Feedback from the student body about the plan thus far "has been more positive than negative," said McKechnie. However, Council members' feelings were mixed.

King stated, "Perception is a huge deal. I don't see this as being perceived favorably. Immediately what they [students] are going to do is see divisions and blocks."

King also said he thought that the timing was poor, as students plan ahead to get into particular houses and now only particular houses will be available to them. "Advantages of this would be more widely reaped a year from now," King continued.

Council member Joseph Palombo '04 said he felt differently, stating, "It is hard to say that any senior will come up with a bad room. We live in palaces. Really, we do." Michael Silberman '02, questioning the true equity of the arrangements, commented, "It is going to be hard to convince a senior that house X is equitable to house Y."

The intent of the administration on this issue "isn't to take housing away from students but to help with our long term plan of creating equal housing like that in Ross," said Associate Provost and Associate Professor of American Literature and Civilization Tim Spears. Further complicating the issue was the fact that McKechnie "did not hear of the plans to assign LaForce to Ross until halfway through first semester," so planning for the new room draw system had to be completed in little time. An additional change to the old system is that block draw, rather than being conducted separately from open draw, will occur on each night of room draw week prior to each class' open and substance free draws. Additionally, students who wish to live on substance free halls will be required to attend an informational meeting about substance free living. On the day of their class' room draw, once students decide to draw for sub-free housing, they may not change their minds unless there are no more open spaces on substance free halls.

"Only students who are really interested in sub-free living will get into these halls, and not students who are just looking for an open space," said McKechnie. Last year, because substance free room draw occurred first in the room draw process, students who wanted to get room draw process over with would sign up for a substance free room regardless of whether or not they were actually interested in that type of living arrangement. Also, there was no binding contract for students to sign once they entered the substance free draw, so that if they did not see anything they wanted they could just leave. "Some students who really did want to live in sub-free didn't get the chance to," said McKechnie.