The stressful process of finding housing may be made easier in coming years, with members of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate working to negotiate an early release date for housing lottery numbers.
Senators are meeting with administrators, including officials from the Office of Residential Life, to respond to student concerns about the high costs and low availability of off-campus housing.
While no formal committee has been formed to address the lottery numbers release system, senators Josh Belkin and Jill Bier met with Associate Dean Jean Herbert earlier this month to voice concerns about the current process and discuss possible solutions, such as releasing lottery numbers earlier in the year.
Bier said that "year after year, it has been an issue" and that students have pressed the Senate to address the problem.
According to Belkin, Bier, and Herbert, generating numbers is a relatively easy process. The Office of the Registrar maintains a list of enrolled students and when notified by the Residential Life Office, the registrar releases the list to Information Technology Services (ITS). ITS generates a list of random numbers and sends it to Residential Life. While releasing numbers as early as this fall is unlikely, according to Herbert, the process is simple enough to be done earlier in the spring.
Some rising juniors are concerned about securing housing and said they would welcome an earlier release date. Sophomore Mike Stevenson signed a lease this September to make sure that he would live close to campus next year. If students got lottery numbers earlier, he said, "there wouldn't be so much stress worrying about getting a good place to live."
"You'd know right away whether your best option was to live on-campus or off-campus, instead of having to guess about it," he said.
Another problem the senators want addressed is incorrect class standing information that occasionally affects lottery number assignments. "What interested me is that there is a need to know people's class standing for making sure the lottery is correct," Herbert said.
Errors in determining class standing usually result from misinterpreting the number of credits a student has earned. Engineers and students in five-year programs, such as Tufts' joint degree program with the New England Conservatory, may carry extra credits. The registrar may also incorrectly determine class for students with enough Advanced Placement (AP) credits to qualify for advanced standing.
Following their meeting with Herbert, Belkin and Bier met with Lorraine Toppi, acting director of residential life on Oct. 11. Toppi, who declined to comment on the meeting, has since spoken with Herbert about the likelihood and possible restrictions of releasing lottery numbers early.
Herbert said that preemptive actions could be taken as early as the fall semester to avoid problems about incorrect class standing. One such solution may be to e-mail students "to check SIS Online and see what we have," she said. Such efforts would help "avoid frustration" and make "the lottery go much more smoothly."
Belkin and Bier are scheduled to meet with Dean of Students Bruce Reitman today. They are hoping to familiarize him with the situation and discuss their next step in getting lottery numbers released earlier.
