As the housing selection process continues, some rising upperclassmen are already crying foul.
Many sophomores and juniors have complained that they were not able to secure rooms--singles or doubles--on West Campus, pointing in anger to freshmen who were virtually guaranteed the best housing. Most notably, they say they were not informed ahead of time that housing officials would set aside singles for freshmen. Amid the growing complaints, Assistant Dean of Student Development Bill Burig said he will hold a special selection session for upperclassmen requesting singles, citing the numerous singles left after freshmen single picks. According to the online room locator, there are 19 remaining singles for men on West and 60 for women.
The crunched space results from this year's new housing plan, which guarantees each freshman a room in a West Campus quadrangle linked to his own East Campus dormitory. The plan, which mandates that all sophomores be housed on West beginning in fall 2003, means space typically taken by sophomores and juniors in the lottery process is less abundant. Many juniors, who would have likely had access to single rooms on West in the past, were compelled to choose doubles or move off campus, while a number of freshmen received singles on Main West.
Junior Andrew Stepner was unsuccessful in his bid to pick a single on West. "If they did it strictly by lottery numbers, [rising] seniors would have the first crack at them, and they probably would have filled up," he said. "I can understand that they want to put all [rising] sophomores on West, but I don't think that [rising] sophomores should have preference to get singles."
The original linked housing plan did not specify that singles would be set aside for freshmen, but Burig said the move was actually in the best interests of upperclassmen. He explained that since single room picks took place first, sophomores and juniors would have selected them, then freshmen would have been forced into doubles; this would result in fewer doubles for upperclassmen in the end.
"Before single room picks took place, we looked at [the juniors and seniors] who requested singles and those who requested doubles," he said. "We looked at those proportions, applied them to the number of bed spaces that were available in a given quad, which left us x number of singles and x number of doubles that could be selected by juniors and seniors."
In addition to frustrations concerning singles, many independent male upperclassmen--any who were not in the first five of 12 groups to select--could not get a room on Main West at all.
Sophomore Andrew Zabrovsky said there were about 10 rooms for men left in Edens when he went to room picks. "We were pretty sure that with our number, we would be able to at least find something on [Main] West, if not in the [West-Edens Link]," he said.
Sophomore Class President Mike Sacks said his class did not have much of a choice but to live primarily on Central Campus.
Campus Council president Vik Devisetty said he had heard singles would be available for sophomores but that he did not know so many would be set aside. He said there were only around 63 singles reserved for seniors and juniors, and Campus Council was not solicited for input.
"If I were a rising senior, I would think the whole situation was absurd," he said. "I don't think people realized how many rooms would be reserved for sophomores on West and how great of an impact that would have on them."
Senior Sean Young, Duke Student Government residential life liaison, said setting aside single rooms for rising sophomores was not articulated as part of the new residential life plan.
"I was under the impression that seniors had first pick at all of the singles," Young said. "I did not know that some singles were designated for sophomores.... If there were indeed [single] rooms that were designated as linked, thereby being described as a sophomore room, that would be particularly disturbing to me."
John Bush, Dave Ingram and Jen Song contributed to this story.
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