Housing reform prompts sharp criticism

Author: Brian Fung

Complaints about the College's annual room draw process have spiked in recent weeks as an unusually high number of rising juniors and seniors failed to secure their preferred housing options for the next academic year. Students and administration officials attributed the housing difficulties in part to the College's unanticipated over-enrollment troubles that came with the Class of 2011.

The latest housing squeeze also comes amid the most striking change to affect the College residential system since the introduction of the five commons - Atwater, Brainerd, Cook, Ross and Wonnacott - in 1998. After announcing last fall that planned expansions of on-campus residential options would be suspended in favor of financial aid and faculty development, College officials have sought to provide upperclassmen with equal access to the best housing while mandating that first-years and sophomores remain geographically segregated by their commons to preserve the commons experience.

That decision effectively extinguished any short-term prospects for fleshing out the commons system, which initially hoped to give each commons its own dining hall and residential cluster. That policy has now been replaced by the new, so-called "4/2 Commons" system unveiled by Dean of the College Tim Spears in 2007.

Among other provisions, the 4/2 system calls for housing all rising sophomores together by commons. But last year's unexpected influx of matriculates for the Class of 2011 has sent the College scrambling to reserve virtually entire residence halls for rising sophomores, displacing upperclassmen who would have otherwise inhabited those halls. Room draw spaces were further limited this spring by the loss of other housing options such as Porter House due to "facilities issues," according to Residential Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts.

"[Carr Hall] would have been another 11 beds," said Hall-Kolts. "Every bed starts to count, and you start adding them up and you realize, 'oh, boy, it's going to be tight this year.'"

At time of press, between roughly 125 and 135 students had yet to be housed. While these numbers are fairly normal, said Hall-Kolts, they differ from past years in that they are weighted more heavily towards juniors and seniors.

Some rising upperclassmen have complained that the new 4/2 system puts them at a disadvantage. Leslie Lim '10, though she was awarded a single in Starr Hall, explained that many of her friends had been hoping to live with her next year but instead were put into summer draw, which allocates leftover housing throughout July and August.

"We always used to be able to get Starr or Painter [Hall], no matter what," said Lim. "Even if you were in summer draw you got put there, and now all my friends can't even get into Starr or Painter because it's inter-commons."

Anders Meyer '08.5 faced frustration when he sought off-campus housing. With only one semester left in his Middlebury career, Meyer had hoped his seniority would allow him to easily secure a spot.

"We ended up second-to-last of all the people who applied for off-campus," he said. "It's hard for me to understand that or feel like that's fair when [some of those applicants] have three semesters left, so it seems a little odd that they'd get off-campus now when there are people like me who only have one more opportunity to live off-campus."

Lim said she expected the level of complaints to recede as students gradually become accustomed to the new 4/2 housing arrangement.

"There were more people with the same complaints, because everything was compounded by this trial year," she said. "I also just think they should stop accepting so many people."

In response to students' perennial difficulties with room draw, Hall-Kolts said it can be difficult for everybody to get prime housing.

"Put in many applications and put it in perspective," she advised. While there are few "bad" rooms on campus, she continued, students enter the process with very high expectations.

"It's a room," she said. "Do I want to live with a friend or do I want a good room? Sometimes you can't necessarily get the best of both worlds and you have to compromise."