Students who participate in the annual on-campus housing selection process this spring may see some minor improvements, such as more access to up-to-the-second information about room availability, but the lottery still will not occur online because the Office of Residential Life and Learning lacks the necessary resources.
Students have requested that ResLife implement an online housing lottery system, which would allow them to select rooms without waiting in line at Cousens Gym and would help them stay up-to-date throughout the three-day process.
But ResLife may not be able to move the lottery online for some time, according to Director of Residential Life and Learning Yolanda King.
King declined to provide a timeline for the online registration's implementation, explaining that the transformation could conclude soon or could take several years. She said that a number of other universities employ a Web-based system, and that she hopes the housing lottery will come up to speed with other online services like class registration. "It's one of the top priorities," she said.
ResLife is currently considering a variety of different companies and options to make the move possible.
"We're contacting vendors to look at different packages," King said, adding that ResLife starting investigating options last spring after receiving a substantial amount of student feedback that broached the subject of a Web-based version.
Last year, students complained that they were unable to keep track of which rooms had been taken in the final moments before they selected their rooms.
Students say they want to know about room availability during the final stages of the housing lottery, according to King. "They want to have screens … so that they can see what rooms are available," she said.
In recent years, ResLife has put large screens, which feature up-to-the-second information on what rooms have been selected, near the bleachers in the gym's holding area, where students wait for their numbers to be called. But when they line up to walk across the gym to the tables where ResLife staffers mark down final selections, the students lose sight of the screens. ResLife hopes to avoid last-minute confusion by adding screens that are visible to people approaching the tables.
Sophomore Cynthia Brunelle said she had a relatively good number when choosing a room last year, but that this did not prevent her and others from worrying in the hours leading up to the time when their numbers were called.
"I know that at the time, it felt super-disorganized and that the actual event itself is very stressful," she said. "We just sat and watched the rooms get slowly taken away." Brunelle and her roommate eventually got a double in the dormitory they wanted, Miller Hall.
Ben Hubbell-Engler, a sophomore who held a low number last spring, said that ResLife handles the process relatively well, but that he would like to see it go online.
"I think the housing lottery process is fine," he said. "I think you should be able to do it online. As far as having lottery numbers, there's got to be a way to do [the housing process], and I think this works out fine."
In an effort to educate students about the housing lottery, ResLife held two information sessions last month and plans to sponsor at least two more in January. The office did not hold similar meetings last year.
"It is confusing, but they are trying their best to help improve it and make it easy to understand," one residential assistant said of the lottery. The RA talked on the condition of anonymity because a ResLife policy prohibits certain staffers from speaking to the media.
