The Office of Residential Life has good news for students whose desires for a single on the Residential Quad next year have been dashed by all-freshman housing.
Several suites in Hill Court and Towers will be designated ?random-room? ? as many as 18 in total, said Laurel Conto-manolis, associate director of Residential Life.
Only approximately 66 singles would have been available without this change.
?We?re trying to get that number back up so people don?t feel that the only way to get a single is to go in with five of [their] best friends,? Contomanolis said. ?Given no other alternatives, we?ll take some suites.?
Now the odds of getting a single will be similar to that of earlier lotteries. If rooms in as many as 18 suites are available, more than 100 additional singles will open up.
Hill Court will therefore essentially be preserved as a haven for seniors and some juniors.
?That was kind of expected by students. There are some things that are sacred ground,? Contoma-nolis said.
But all the details of arranging a living situation for strangers have not been worked out yet.
?My biggest question comes down to smoking and non-smoking,? Contoma-nolis said.
The current plan allows the first person who signs up for a suite to decide. But the possibility exists for the first people arriving to be all non-smoking or all smoking, effectively shutting out the other groups.
?There really is no good way? of answering that need, Contoma-nolis said.
SBA singles
In addition, half of the singles on the sixth floor of Susan B. Anthony Residence Halls have been preserved. The arrangement calls for the Tiernan Project to occupy singles and doubles on two wings of the floor, as well as doubles in the other two wings.
But the altered options for the singles lottery are only one of the changes to the River Campus room draw for next year, Contoma-nolis said.
Students who wish to retain their rooms in the Graduate Living Center will choose first, followed by those who make early decisions to live there as well. All benefits, including the $200 discount per semester and the half-housing point for the next year, will be maintained.
?You will know on April 2, just a few days after you turn in your housing contract, where you?re living,? she said.
Based on this information, Contomanolis said the number of rooms necessary to fulfill the promise of on-campus housing for the Class of 2004 will be assessed and Residential Life will reserve rooms for them in both Towers and SBA to encourage mixing within the classes.
?Once we get through the first year with the class all segregated, it?s important to get them to interact with other students,? Contomanolis said, so that older students can act as role models. ?How successful that is depends somewhat on how people pick.?
After students are placed in GLC, upper-classman lotteries for suites, clusters and singles will be held before separate sophomore drawings for doubles.
Residential Life plans to create several ?cluster communities? in SBA, but those spaces will be limited to maintain a certain amount of unaffiliated space in that building.
Contomanolis remains optimistic that the options available in the room draw for next year won?t encourage ?junior flight,? the Class of 2003 moving off campus.
?What we?ve been seeing over the course of four to five years is steadily increasing numbers of students opting to stay on campus,? Contomanolis said. ?More and more are opting to stay all four years.
?We can?t go back to square one,? Contomanolis said.
