Community Council update: Council discusses room draw process, tree vandalism

In its Feb. 21 meeting, Community Council members discussed room draw and recent landscape vandalism on campus.

Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams and Residential System Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts explained the room draw system to the council.

“A huge reason for the stresses of room draw is lack of information,” wrote council member Janet Rodrigues ’12 in an e-mail. “Students do not really understand the complicated process of room draw; we are each just one [among] 2,000 trying to find housing.”

Kolts and Adams also clarified the new policy with regards to Superblocks, particularly the Mods. They have decided to include more students in the Superblock application review and will consider groups and locations larger than the Mods.

Hall-Kolts hopes that the Community Council will urge other students to stay informed by using the Undergraduate Housing room draw webpage and also share what they learn to help reduce the spread of incorrect information.

Kolts encourages students to choose housing based on friendships, not on the draw number, since the tendency is for students with good numbers to try for large suites even if they really only want a smaller room.

The administration also intends to look into different options for Feb housing, since many new Febs are in upperclassmen housing and therefore isolated from other first years.

The regular room draw will begin after numbers are released on April 4.

Horticulturist Tim Parsons joined the Council as well to discuss the vandalism of the trees on campus this fall.

Over the course of 10 consecutive weekends, eight trees were killed, amounting to somewhere between $6,000 - $8,000 in property damage. Although many branches were broken in addition to this damage, Parsons explained that the cost of that damage is much harder to estimate.

Parsons stressed that many of the trees and branches were large and would have been difficult to break.

“This is an act of rage, of violence, well beyond wanton destruction of property,” wrote Parsons in a blog post last November.

One suggestion from the Council encouraged fostering a “neighborhood watch” spirit on campus with regards to living spaces.

When property is broken within a dorm, the College can often identify the people who are most likely responsible for the damage, and if no culprit can be found, the entire dorm can be billed.

“Students are not aware of the constant disrespect that occurs on a weekly and even daily basis,” wrote Rodrigues. “I believe that the current attitude towards community needs to be revised.”

No trees have been broken in the last few weeks. Parsons believes that this could be due to the amount of snow making it difficult to access the trees or that the trend may finally have ended.

Parsons has been trying to confront this problem by creating awareness of and appreciation for the campus landscape. He led a J-Term course and created a campus tree map to teach students about the trees on campus. More information about the tree destruction can be found on his blog at http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middland.

This rise in landscape vandalism coincides with a rise in dorm damage as well, a topic that will be discussed at next week’s Council meeting.

Tim Parson's Blog: The Middlebury Landscape