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BY MARTHA MARRAZZA

In print | Published November 30, 2006

Members of the housing committee are exploring and pursuing a variety of new proposals to improve housing and dorm life at Swarthmore, including a new lottery system and a proposal regarding placement of first-year students.

In its most recent meeting held Nov. 20, the committee decided to pursue a new housing lottery number generation system created by George Dahl ’08 and Meggie Ladlow ’09.

According to Dahl, he and Ladlow devised a fairer system for assigning lottery numbers to students. “The new proposed system basically tries to make every student’s sum of their lottery numbers over [their] three years in the housing lottery as close to the same number as possible,” he said.

Under the current cohort system, each class is divided into three ranked cohorts. Students are assigned to each of the three cohorts over their sophomore, junior and senior years. Those students given the lowest numbers or placed in the best cohort get housing preference.

“You could get the best number in your class sophomore year. In the junior lottery you could get the best number again,” Dahl said. “In our system that can’t happen, because it actively tries to push your sum towards everyone else’s sum.”

Housing coordinator Liz Derickson said committee members seemed receptive and excited about Dahl and Ladlow’s presentation. “It was exciting to talk about it with the housing committee. They had some questions about the proposal and suggested a few ways to tweak it, but it seemed to really resonate with folks,” she said.

Derickson said the new system, with a few changes, will be phased in for the class of 2010. “I think our conclusion is that we won’t enact it for the class of 2009 because they’ve already made their blocking choices based on the old system,” she said. “We’ll slowly phase it in. We can’t implement it for the class of 2008 or 2009, but I think we can start with the class of 2010.”

At the first housing committee meeting back in October, committee members brainstormed agenda items to address over the course of the school year, ranging from creating a card swipe system on campus to phasing out freshmen from Mary Lyon dormitory.

“People were floating around ideas to improve the housing system,” Derickson said. “One idea was the card swipe system. It comes up all time. It’s very expensive but alluring.”

Housing committee member Scott Storm ‘08 agreed. "It’s brought up like every year, but because it would cost something like $1 million, I don’t think we’re going to see it for a while," he said.

Additionally, Storm raised the issue of housing first-year students in Mary Lyon, claiming that housing some first-year students off campus creates an issue of inequity of access to campus resources. “Coming to college is already really hard, but when you live in Mary Lyon as a first-year you don’t have the same resources and opportunities that people on campus have. It’s more difficult to access cultural groups, professors’ office hours and other activities,” he said. “As an institution built on Quaker equality, I think it’s a complete injustice and something that needs to be really seriously looked at.”

Dean of Student Life Myrt Westphal disagrees with Storm’s proposal to phase out freshmen in Mary Lyon. “I think there are a couple of freshmen in ML who would prefer to be closer to the center of campus, but there are a lot who are very happy in ML,” she said. “One way of looking at issues is to not to have a couple of dissatisfied people drive a change if it might not be what’s really best for the community. I think you have to listen to individual voices, but I think you need to have more than just a couple of people to drive a change.”

Committee members will continue to debate Storm’s proposal, Derickson said. “We batted the idea around the room. People had strong opinions and it’s something we’ll explore. It’s an interesting idea, but there is a lot we need to take into account before we make any changes.”

Committee members are dedicated to improving the transparency of some housing practices as well, according to discussion in the October meeting. Besides working to make the housing Web site more viewer-friendly, Derickson said the committee wants to clarify the blocking process for students.

“People talked about improving transparency of the blocking system,” Derickson said. “For example, people sort of randomly apply for blocks. We want to build some kind of way that would allow people to view electronically how competitive a block is, or how many other people are going for that block.”

In more run-of-the-mill business, Derickson said the committee addressed possible renovations to be made this year. “We are looking at renovations for dorms, and we’ve considered recommendations about which kitchens, lounges and halls in general are the places that need attention,” she said.

As the December housing lottery approaches, administrators and students are occupied with preparing for next semester’s housing changes.

Derickson acknowledged that the high number of students returning from abroad will lead to a housing crunch in the spring. “There is a real scramble for housing next semester. There are a smaller number of people going abroad in spring, so there is just a fundamental imbalance there. However, this fall housing is a little less tight than last fall,” Derickson said. “My sense is that the junior class is very aware of this. From the questions from students abroad and their proxies, folks are very aware and realistic about their expectations for the spring.”

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