Housing headaches for some

As the spring semester begins, several study abroad students — both those returning from fall semesters abroad and those going abroad in the spring — have said they had problems communicating with the Housing Department. Though these students said they received delayed or incomplete information regarding their new rooming assignments, administrators maintained that they communicate with students throughout the process.

Choi said she received an e-mail from the Office of International Programs while abroad that indicated she could apply for spring semester housing beginning on Dec. 1. But the Housing Department did not provide her with a list of students studying abroad for the spring semester until Dec. 21, she said, 10 days before the housing preference application was due.

When Choi received her spring housing assignment on Jan. 20, Marli Wang ’11 — Choi’s new roommate — was not notified.

“The housing office didn’t tell me anything about getting a new roommate,” Wang said. “And I assumed that if I were getting a roommate, housing would tell me.”

Miranda Sachs ’11, who studied abroad in Paris this fall, said her new roommate had a similar reaction.

“She had no idea. She arrived Sunday night and I was in her room,” Sachs said.

Wang expressed concern with the lack of notification, especially given the differences between students’ living routines.

“My previous roommate and I kept a Kosher and Sabbath-observant room, which I know Ellen was not expecting,” she added. “While I’m happy to have a roommate, I do wish housing had informed me in some way.” Students who observe the Jewish Sabbath do not use electricity on Friday evenings or Saturdays.

Manager of Undergraduate Housing Angela Hodgeman said that students studying abroad in the spring are supposed to inform their current roommates that a new student may move in for the semester. She added that her office also sends e-mails to students in rooms with vacancies in mid-January, allowing them to select new roommates from a list of returning students. Hodgeman also said that e-mails are sent to students with their new roommates’ information.

“Students should always be aware that if they have a vacancy in their room, it is a possibility that they will be assigned a new roommate at any given time throughout the year,” Hodgeman said. “It is possible that notice is very short depending on when we receive a housing application and when we issue a contract ... We are placing students in rooms even into the first week of classes depending on a student’s re-admission status.”

But Choi said communication for replacement housing is lacking.

“Compared to the constant e-mails you usually get [for] room draw or housing at Princeton, I didn’t get as many reminders or information about housing assignments,” Choi said. “I feel like it was very much a do-it-yourself process.”

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Sachs, however, noted that her experience with housing was relatively smooth.

After she was contacted regarding her housing application, Sachs e-mailed the Housing Department to request a room in Scully near her friends. Housing then responded, saying, “ ‘We can’t guarantee anything, but if you want to live in Scully, indicate that on your application,’ ” Sachs said. She was subsequently assigned to a two-room double in Scully.

“I had been very afraid that I was going to get stuck in the slums, far away from all my friends,” she added, referring to upperclass dorms near University Place.

At the same time that Choi, Wang and Sachs were adjusting to their new rooming situations, Ting-Fung Chan ’12 was preparing for nearly a month without an official housing accommodation.

Chan, whose spring semester in Germany does not begin until Feb. 27, hoped to live in a dorm room until his program started so that he wouldn’t have to fly back to his home in Hong Kong. He e-mailed the Housing Department on Dec. 2, requesting an interim assignment following the Jan 25. deadline to vacate his fall room, but did not hear back until Jan. 19, when the department rejected his request.

Senior Associate Dean of the College Nancy Kanach, who oversees study abroad programs, said that this policy is in place to ensure that housing is available for students enrolled for the spring semester.

Chan will live in a friend’s common room until his program starts, but he expressed disappointment at the University’s inflexibility.

“I think that it’s appropriate that I be assigned alternative accommodations somewhere on campus and charged for the extra period of stay, especially when I made my request early on,” he said.

“I find the Housing Department’s lack of flexibility in handling this problem quite ridiculous,” Chan explained. “I understand that the department cannot always yield to student demands, but I still cannot believe that they would allow red tape and unrelenting adherence to rules to get in the way of providing reasonable accommodations for a student enrolled in a Princeton-approved study abroad program prior to the official start date.”

Hodgeman, however, said, “Students know months in advance when the move-out date is when they are first contemplating participating in a study abroad program, so hopefully they are able to make arrangements to go home after exams until their programs begin.”

Hodgeman added that she is continuing discussions with Kanach to improve the housing experience for students studying abroad, adding that her office “will look to be more proactive and try to give as much notice as we can earlier in January regarding the reassignment of a student.”

For students whose housing arrangements are impacted by study abroad programs, an increase in communication, Sachs explained, could be beneficial.

“It’s hard for a student to go abroad and have no idea where they’re coming back to,” Sachs said.