A total of 55 freshman women did not receive a West Campus room assignment Sunday, and at least four freshman men have been asked to relocate from their Craven Quadrangle assignments Monday afternoon.
Eddie Hull, dean of residence life and executive director of housing services, explained RLHS' plans to resolve the situation in an e-mail to The Chronicle Monday afternoon.
The first step is to make the 16 rooms on West normally reserved for special-needs students available, he said. RLHS will then redesignate 20 unselected West Campus male rooms that are near proper female restrooms for women.
"These solutions take care of 36 of the 55 spaces, leaving 19 that still need to be identified," he said.
Clearing the way
It is unclear how many freshman men have been asked to relocate. Residence Life and Housing Services officials did not respond to requests for comment Monday night.
"In evaluating the space that is still open on West, we noted that the four of you are currently the only residents of the Craven first floor. To create more female bedspace, we are asking that you relocate," Jen Frank, Residence Life and Housing Services assignments coordinator, wrote in an e-mail sent at 3:56 p.m. to four freshman men. "We would appreciate it if you could each e-mail us back with your mutual selection by 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 1."
The students were given four rooms from which to choose, one of which was previously expanded from a double to a triple but will be reverted back to a double, and two of which are in Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity's Edens Quadrangle 1B section.
"I was just confused by this. I thought the way the lottery system worked, once we get a number, we pick a room," said freshman Pat Lang, one of the four students asked to move. "They never said anything about once you get a room there's the possibility that they boot you."
Lang, who had been assigned to House C in Craven Quadrangle, said that if he has to move, he and his roommate will be separated from the rest of their block.
He said he was unsure if the situation is negotiable, noting that in the e-mail Frank wrote that RLHS is "asking" the students to relocate.
"I assume it's a polite way of them saying, 'Get out,'" Lang said.
Sophomores on Central?
To account for the remaining women without assignments, RLHS will permit the 19 remaining unhoused freshman women to live on Central Campus in single, roommate-pair or multiperson apartments on a voluntary basis.
"As we experience attrition on West between now and August (and we always do), [we will] give these women the first choice to be reassigned to West Campus," Hull said.
Several freshman women who did not receive a housing assignment Sunday said they were confused when the message, "There are zero beds remaining that fulfill your requirements," appeared on the Room Pix Web site.
"The number [of available rooms] just kept going down, and then it was gone," freshman Amy Matulewicz said.
All students who did not get a West Campus housing assignment received an e-mail Sunday night from RLHS assuring them an eventual housing assignment on West.
With a high lottery number, freshman Allie Sterling said she did not expect to get her first-choice dormitory or even to be able to block with her 11 friends but did expect to get a room.
"Ending up with nowhere to live is unacceptable," Sterling said.
Although freshman Sarah Lumsden said she is worried about having to live on Central, she said she understands that she just got unlucky with the lottery system.
"Obviously I'd like to know where I'm living right now, but it's not something they did intentionally to screw us over," she said. "It's just a mistake."
'Dear RLHS, Build us a tree house'
But Lang said he does not understand how RLHS did not foresee the problem. He noted that statistics were posted on the Room Pix site that indicated how many available rooms were on West and how many women and men applied.
"From the stats, it was obvious there were too many girls," he said. "I don't know what the plan was."
Some freshman women said they were also frustrated with the Room Pix system and RLHS' lapse in accountability.
"All of us were pretty heated about the situation," Sterling said. "[We were] pretty upset with RLHS when we found out we were homeless."
Angered by the prospect of not having West housing next semester, Matulewicz created a Facebook group called "Dear RLHS, Build us a tree house on the quad." She said the group was made in response to the situation as a stress reliever for her block.
"I mean, I'm not actually going to live in a tree house," she said.
Although RLHS officials did not foresee this problem, Hull said it will be solved and all rising sophomore women will have a bed next semester.
"It's not the way we anticipated this process working out, but the important thing at this point is to work with these students as proactively as possible, to get them assigned and not have them worry about where they are going to live next year," he said.
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