Currently, the housing office offers room improvement to those in the bottom quarter of their class during the regular upperclass draw. These students submit a form listing which room characteristics, such as square footage, location and number of room inhabitants, are most important to them. The housing office, in turn, places as many of these students as it can in rooms meeting the listed criteria that become vacant between Room Draw and mid-summer. This results in fewer students living in substandard rooms.
The idea behind room improvement is a good one. The manner in which it is implemented, however, needs revision. Under the current system, both rising seniors and juniors in the bottom of their respective classes are eligible to apply for room improvement. Including seniors in room improvement is completely unnecessary given the good quality and wide variety of rooms available to all seniors during room draw. It is rising juniors who face substantial inequity in the upperclass draw. The time used by the housing office in addressing room improvement for seniors, a non-issue, could be spent handling more meaningful housing concerns.
Also problematic is that room improvement applications are processed in the same order as students’ original draw times. This means that the student whose draw time was in the 25th percentile receives room improvement first and the student with the worst draw time gets it last. In theory, study abroad students and those whose room improvement applications are processed first vacate their rooms, which can be subsequently taken by the next group. Ideally, this creates a chain, and everyone’s room is improved. In reality, those toward the middle or bottom of the list often do not have the chance to significantly upgrade their rooms, or there are no longer available rooms that match their preferences. This is clearly problematic. The students at the tail end of the draw — those who need room improvement most — are often the very same students who do not benefit from the system.
This system needs an overhaul. The order in which room improvement applications are processed should be randomized, giving everyone an equal chance to get a better room. This would give those with the worst rooms a much better chance at successful room improvement, without seriously disadvantaging any other section of the draw.
Over the past year, the administration has shown itself to be responsive to student concerns regarding housing. Nassau Hall should continue to follow this path by modifying the current room improvement system, ensuring equitable access to quality upperclass housing for those with the worst draw times.
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