A modest proposal

In the wake of the recent outrageous Residence Life and Housing Services debacle in which 58 female students were initially left without housing for next year, many different groups on campus have offered up their solutions to the problem.

Tuesday, RLHS itself made the brilliant decision to relocate some of the remaining students to Central Campus, where they will become the first sophomores since 1997 to enter a frightening world of C-2s, grad students and Grace's.

As compensation, RLHS is offering these refugees a whopping $750 per semester to be exiled to Central. That turns out to be 3.1 percent of the tens of thousands of dollars they are already paying to supposedly have a top-notch education along with a Gothic roof over their heads.

In response to these proposals by RLHS, I sat down with creativity, thoughtfulness and pure logic to make some modest proposals of my own. I have no doubt that after reading these, RLHS will agree with my logic and move to adopt at least one of my well-delineated plans:

Kicking it in K-ville:

One criticism of moving the sophomores to Central is that it undermines the important Duke tradition of three years of on-campus housing. On that same note, what could be a more important Duke tradition than Krzyzewskiville?

The homeless students could move into K-ville in August, effectively becoming Tent No. 1. What an honor! Furthermore, if Tent No. 1 gets sponsorship from a sporting goods store like in past years, their housing would be free. It's a win-win situation.

K-ville has a fantastic location on West Campus for year-round living, exposes the girls to the great outdoors and is an important Duke institution. In addition, the girls would get first-row seats at the Carolina game. What could be better than that?

Balling with Brodhead:

President Brodhead and his wife live in the three-story Hart House all by themselves. Perhaps they will be willing to open their hearts and their home to these poor orphans of the storm.

In the past, the administration has encouraged greater student-faculty interaction with programs such as the faculty-in-residence in the West Campus quads and East Campus dormitories. My plan is simply taking that a step further.

The students would get prime housing in a mansion right on campus, and Brodhead could definitely benefit from more direct communication with the student body. Once again, another win-win situation.

Though limited here in my column to 700 words, I have conducted extensive research into the planning and logistics of each of these proposals. I have no doubt that RLHS will see the impeccable reasoning behind each of these ideas, and if they would like more details on how to implement them as soon as they can, they may contact me directly.

I can't think of any possible alternatives to these plans. After all, it would be absurd to suggest that RLHS actually count the amount of students requiring housing and the amount of beds available, or stop building more freshman dorms when there aren't enough upper-class dorms available, or release willing juniors from the housing contract that RLHS has already broken, or offer students more than a laughable $750 for the inconvenience of relocating to Central, or replace the current leadership so these embarrassing snafus never happen at this University again.

I would also like to make it known that I have no personal interest and seek no personal gain from these modest proposals, other than providing for the shelter of my fellow Duke students.

I will be living in Erwin next year.

Stacy Chudwin is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Thursday.