Housing and Dining Programs will not differentiate between rising juniors and seniors during this month’s housing lottery, according to the department’s Room Selection Guide, released Monday.
Chris Moody, executive director of Housing and Dining, said the decision was made as a result of last year’s Brailsford & Dunlavey facilities study, which urged AU to “rethink campus housing priorities.”
“Shifting priorities to first-year students would put us in a place where rising juniors were next,” Moody said. “Rather than completely alienating the senior class, which is what happened at the University of Maryland-College Park, we didn’t feel like [flipping the priorities] based on our numbers.”
UMD’s housing allocation process gives highest priority to the youngest students and explicitly does not guarantee four years of on-campus housing, according to the UMD Department of Residence Life Web site.
Currently, 84 percent of seniors live off-campus, Moody said.
Courtney Klamar, the president of the Residence Hall Association, said she sees it as logical for upperclassmen to be given a lower priority, since they are more likely to live off-campus.
“Under that logic, if you are going to say that seniors have preference over juniors, it goes against the logic,” she said. “I understand how [rising] seniors feel that they’ve paid their dues and now should have priority in the system ... It’s how this system has worked for a long time.”
Next year, housing at the Berkshire Apartments will no longer be all-inclusive, as Housing and Dining will require residents to pay for their own Internet and cable.
The reasons for this change were twofold, Moody said.
During the fall semester, Housing and Dining had a billing dispute with the company that provides cable service to the complex, leaving some residents without television for weeks, The Eagle previously reported.
Students at the Berks also said they either did not want TV or wanted access to premium channels.
The cost of cable and Internet has been subtracted from the housing rates next year, Moody said.
Once the lottery process is complete and all 400 spots have been assigned to rising juniors and seniors, there will be about 350 spaces left over that were in the lottery inventory but that were not selected. These spaces will be for rising sophomores, in addition to double rooms. Moody predicts that most of those spaces will be in Centennial Hall.
“I imagine a bulk of Centennial will still be available for rising sophomores,” he said.
For rising sophomores, all spaces will be available at once online on a first-come, first-serve basis, he said.
The actual lottery will be computerized and completely random. There will be a representative from RHA observing the process as it takes place to ensure that the lottery is run correctly.
Applications to participate in the lottery are due at 5 p.m. Feb. 12. Lottery numbers will be randomly assigned on Feb. 17 and the room selection process will begin Feb. 23 for 11 1/2 month leases at the Berks. The rest of the spaces will be assigned on Feb. 25 and 26.
You can reach this staff writer at eklapper@theeagleonline.com.
