Senior room draw open to change

Author: Laura Barrett

On Oct. 27, the Strategic Planning Committee announced the possibility of changing the room draw process for seniors. The committee has decided to invest more in faculty and staff rather than in building more housing, so the quality differences in senior housing among commons will not be rectified for at least seven or eight years. Faced with this continued inequality, the committee is seeking ways to balance the desires of the students with the needs of the commons.

One proposal is for seniors to participate in an open room draw process until the housing in all five commons is equitable. This potential temporary restructuring of the housing system is still a new and little-explored topic.

"We really have three options. We can detach senior housing from the commons or we can reallocate housing, taking half of Hall A or B and giving it to Brainerd or Wonnacott. … The other choice is to just stick with the status quo," said Dean of the College Tim Spears.

Spears and Kelly Bevere, assistant dean of the College, both emphasized that plans for changing room draw are still in the very earliest stages of planning. The Steering Committee has not had a chance to talk about this matter again, so talk about the future of this issue is only speculative at this point. The Committee is scheduled to present all its suggestions to the College in the middle of February, including a proposal for the commons system and room draw with the buildings on campus remaining as they are currently.

The Committee has a lot of priorities it is trying to negotiate. According to Spears, the question is whether "we make it through seven or eight years without changing the current system. We're looking for what's best for the commons system and what's most equitable for students."

Another partial solution that Spears mentioned was downplaying the importance of room draw, perhaps by writing a computer program that would allow some students - for example, seniors drawing blocks - to choose their housing from personal computers. The way the system works now, all five deans are present and everyone must physically be in the same place. If part of room draw were done online, some involved in the planning process think that students would stress less about room draw and would be more likely to be happy with whatever they get.

Individual students' reactions to the possibility of freeing senior housing from the commons system have been quite positive. Elizabeth Zane '06 said, "I think it makes a lot of sense. Although, as a senior in Ross, it wouldn't have been any better for me." Zane mentioned that friends of hers, as seniors, now live in housing that she occupied as a junior. "If we can't all have senior housing, it should at least be non-discriminatory based on commons," she added.

Luke Strauss '07 similarly supported room draw changes for seniors. Commenting on the current system, he added, "People like me have been in Hepburn for three years, so we have a lot of Brainerd points, and so next year I get … a really good room in Hepburn, I guess." He also said that people might be more likely to stay in Brainerd after their first year if they had a chance to draw into good senior housing.

For Ross and Atwater, though, freeing the room draw process from the commons system might undermine the goal of the commons: to create communities of people who live together throughout their time at Middlebury. Spears worries that, if this happens, "it could undo communities that have started to form."