While most students have a distant relationship with the housing department, limited only to the ups and downs of the annual housing lottery, Melissa Childs ’14 has a different perspective. As a ResLife intern this past summer, Childs worked closely with Residential Systems Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts to make changes to the website as part of an effort to make information about the housing process more easily accessible.
Previously, the housing website only consisted of floor plans. Major updates now include a host of information, from rules for hosting parties to housing options based on student status. Childs explains that all of this information was available before, but now it is streamlined and available in one place.
Childs explained that this change was prompted by Hall-Kolts. She had received a number of complaints from students who did not fully understand how the housing process worked. She believes that an update to the main website will result in less confusion and complaints during the process each year.
Childs understands the frustration with the housing process, but also believes that students should better understand how the procedure works to reduce overall anger.
“Obviously, people like to take out their bad housing situations on [Hall-Kolts],” said Childs. “I think that in general at Middlebury, it’s difficult because all students are required to live on campus, and you can live off campus but there are not really a lot of options. I think that because good housing is so dictated by the lottery, [Hall-Kolts] is constantly trying to make it better for students by making it easier and as fair as possible.”
After working in the office over the summer, Childs believes she now truly understands the difficult undertaking of assigning rooms to students. Even over the summer, the housing department works to run housing for language school students and on-campus workers, a process made harder due to the language pledge.
“For one, I have much more respect for what [Hall-Kolts] does,” said Childs. “I also didn’t realize how different Middlebury’s process is from other colleges. [Because there is limited off-campus housing] it almost puts [Hall-Kolts] in a position of high responsibility for what happens to students and the housing department’s decisions.”
Despite the existing problems that plague the housing process, Childs believes that the way housing is operated at the College functions well and that the housing department works to accommodate every student.
“My advice to people would be to remind them that they are lucky because [we] are guaranteed housing and the options are not bad compared to other colleges,” said Childs. “Maybe its not always what you want but the housing here is pretty good overall.”
Residential Systems Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts ensures that all 2,430 beds on campus are filled each semester.
As much as possible, the housing system tries to cater to student needs and therefore offers many different options.
“This year we introduced the quiet house […] based on student indications that they wanted this opportunity,” said Hall-Kolts.
For first-years and sophomores the housing process is simple and streamlined. Housing placements are based on commons and done separately from the junior-senior online draw.
“We’re trying to thin out the number of people that participate in the online draw,” said Hall-Kolts.
By offering housing options such as ResLife positions, social houses, interest houses, super blocks and off-campus living, the College tries to house as many students based on extra-curricular interests as possible.
Hall-Kolts tries to fill the ResLife positions as quickly as possible so that she can cross those students off her list and move on to filling the social houses which can be trickier. She explained that the members of a social house have an obligation to fill the beds in their house before looking at other housing options. Once social houses submit final rosters, she moves on to the interest houses.
Interest houses include the language houses as well as the Outdoor Interest house, PALANA, Weybridge, and the Queer Studies house. Once the interest houses fill, Super Block applications can be assessed.
“We don’t want groups of social house members applying for super blocks and then leaving their social houses short of people,” said Hall-Kolts, explaining why the process occurs in such a specific order.
Super Blocks are groups of students awarded housing for one year based on a common interest, life-style or hobby. Hall-Kolts takes into consideration many factors when deciding where to place Super Blocks.
“I would not put a group of students known to be excessively rowdy in a place next to neighbors because that’s just asking for trouble,” she said.
Once Super Blocks are filled, then off-campus applications are considered. Hall-Kolts noted that one caveat to applying to live off-campus is that if a student is a member of a social house that does not yet have all of its beds filled that student won’t be permitted to live off-campus.
“You have an obligation to that house,” said Hall-Kolts.
The online draw is the final part of the housing process, and the one that often causes the most stress for participating students. Hall-Kolts explained that every student gets a number even if they are already committed to another housing option. The students already committed to other housing will never get to see their number, but this way Hall-Kolts always can use their number as a back-up if their other housing falls through.
“Students want to plan everything out and calculate it, but you can’t calculate it,” said Hall-Kolts.
The numbers are assigned randomly and given to students based on their graduation year. The lower the graduation year, the higher the number. Hall-Kolts explained that the housing process can sometimes be a stressful one because not all students will get the housing they want.
“Number one is the only number that I can promise that I can give them whatever they want,” she said.
Most students will not receive their first choice in housing, but despite the frustration that inevitably ensues, the housing system is greeted with relative satisaction from the student body.
“People always say ‘oh you have the worst job’, but to be honest with you I don’t think I do. I hear from very few dissatisfied students,” she said. “You have to tread carefully in the housing world, but I think that most students are content with what they have.”
Additional Reporting by LAUREN DAVIDSON and Design by OLIVIA ALLEN
