New Housing Selection Draws Confusion from Affected Students
First and second-year students at Reed may remember an email the Office of Residence Life sent on April 9, informing them about a new housing selection system, with some information outlined in a link provided to the college’s website. More recently, on April 18, students received a survey on the new housing selection system, and were asked to provide their feedback. Opinions expressed by students have been mixed– I personally know a number of fellow rising sophomores who have expressed dissatisfaction with the new selection system for a number of reasons, often citing the exact issues Res Life claims were present in the system of automatic allocation.
As stated in the linked FAQ provided by Res Life, the decision to return from the now-familiar system of automatic allocation back to housing selection was done in “an effort to increase resident satisfaction and provide returning students with agency regarding their assignments.” The same passage states that the “auto-allocation process… has impacted student satisfaction with on-campus housing,” citing the possibilities of not receiving a dorm with one’s chosen roommate, not receiving a desired dorm building, and “other concerns,” which were not elaborated on. Just as before, only first and second-year students will be required to live on campus, and study abroad semesters will count towards that residence requirement, which means no other sweeping changes are taking place with this overhaul.
Despite Res Life’s assurances that the new housing selection system will alleviate the lack of student autonomy associated with the housing assignment process, a number of rising sophomores have expressed their dissatisfaction with the new system, as well as how it was implemented. One student, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that, “It was a confusing system because it felt like the numbers were completely arbitrary. Those with low numbers obviously were happy because they got what they wanted but those with high numbers were basically left with table scraps,” expressing concern for the fairness of the selection process, which assigned every student in need of housing for the upcoming semester a random number, which aligned with their position in the queue to choose their housing assignment. When asked about their thoughts on the process they said, “without the transparency of knowing what the system was, it feels like people got arbitrarily shafted.”
This additionally raises some concerns in the direction of Res Life’s communication regarding their recent implementation of this system. The first communication from Res Life that even mentioned a change to the housing process was a link to the aforementioned FAQ page, inserted at the bottom of an email from February 24, notifying students of the housing portal’s opening. As a result, students were left uninformed of Res Life’s intention to change the housing system until after it had been put in place, and were therefore entirely unable to provide preliminary feedback. Another rising sophomore, who wishes to remain anonymous, expressed that they felt like, “a system like this could be tested in some way… it feels like we were guinea pigs,” sharing discontent with Res Life’s decision to implement this system with no room for input from the students whom it affects.
“I would rather be in a system where everybody is getting their second choice than [one where] some people are getting everything and some people are getting nothing,” confided one first-year student, who further questioned whether this system is really more satisfying than the prior automatic allocation system. They further shared that they “don’t know anyone who got one of their top two choices” out of McKinley, Griffin, Bragdon, MacNaughton, Foster, and Scholz. A sentiment that was expressed by a number of students is one of confusion: as another anonymous first-year student stated, “it didn’t make sense why I was making a ranked-choice list if it was ultimately not going to matter at all.”
Multiple rising sophomores, all of whom wished to remain anonymous, also questioned the process of determining the number each student receives, and expressed that they felt it was unfair for students not to have a say in their place in the queue. Another anonymous rising sophomore stated that “some percentage of students here, as a fact, only had two or three choices, whereas other people had literally every single choice available,” questioning the fairness of the housing selection system, especially in its current state. They continued, “by making this system, you had to have known there would be people at the end of the line,” questioning how many students really got what they desired out of the recent housing selection process. They closed by asking “is it really overall more satisfying than the previous system?,” an apparent concern of many rising sophomores.
Despite Res Life’s intention to alleviate concerns about housing at Reed, the process has been less than smooth, with many students affected by it questioning the reason for the change. The office’s stated “effort to improve resident satisfaction” seems to ultimately have backfired, with students claiming that the issues Res Life intended to address feel exacerbated, rather than alleviated, by the change. The Questreached out to Res Life for comment on student concerns, and only received a link to the FAQ page in response, leaving questions such as how roommates were handled under the new system, how each student’s order in the queue was decided, or how Res Life concluded that the system needed to be changed, unaddressed.