According to Dean of Residential Life Eric Vos, the shortfall comes in at only 4 beds; rather, only four students are currently without housing. Last week, says Dean Eric, the number was at 5 after CMC conducted its housing lottery for returning students until one student decided to triple with friends instead. Though some expected the shortfall to be much greater, Dean Eric noted that the newest figure takes into account existing empty beds on campus and those willing to take up the offer to triple or move off campus. The number, however, does not account for those expected to leave campus on academic suspension.

In early November, news of the housing crisis caused a stir and frustrated many, including those on campus and abroad. Though aware of the underlying issues of the most current housing crunch, junior Sean McQueen “was definitely upset that enough housing on campus was not available for juniors coming back from abroad.” McQueen, who is currently participating in CMC’s Washington, DC program, has found housing via an on-campus senior but is concerned for those given less convenient living options. While there seems to be an implicit guarantee for housing all four years at CMC, Dean Eric reminded students at a recent November meeting of the Residential Life Committee that such a guarantee does not in fact exist in CMC’s bylaws.

In an effort to accommodate those left in the lurch, CMC has been working with Pomona College to insure beds for those students unable to find housing on CMC’s campus. Hoping to keep CMC students close to home, Dean Eric attempted to secure beds in Pomona’s newest dorms, Sontag and Pomona Hall, located on the college’s North Campus. The demand among Pomona students for living space in the new dorms, however, has only allowed for availability in Pomona’s Mudd-Blaisdell, a largely freshman dorm located on Pomona’s South Campus and much removed from CMC. Thus far, CMC has secured six beds in three double rooms at Mudd-Blaisdell.

Dean Eric remains hopeful, and says he is “optimistic that everyone returning from abroad will get a bed at the Claremont Colleges.” Indeed, says Dean Eric, “the likelihood that additional openings at CMC will come up for the 4 students [without housing] is high.” Whether those openings on campus are favorable options or last resort attempts at housing remains to be seen. “They’ve all been given the opportunity and information to triple into double rooms,” says Dean Eric, “if they so choose.”

The lingering question remains on how to deal with those CMC students returning to campus in the spring but not from abroad. While transfer students can often account for the increase in housing needs, CMC will not admit any transfers next spring. However, each semester, CMC readmits a certain number of students on leave for suspension, academic probation, or an elected leave of absence. The 5 students who fall into this category next spring, says Dean Eric, are unlikely to get housing at the Claremont Colleges though the potential for space at Pomona seems promising. Unfortunately for the already fragile housing situation, the number of readmits could potentially increase, causing even more stress on campus resources.

To aid all students in securing spring housing, CMC has asked that students consider a triple bed option in rooms the administration will deem appropriate for tripling . In the November Residential Life Committee meeting, Dean Eric suggested, for example, that the especially large double rooms in Beckett Hall be used as triples next spring. Yet after speaking with the residents there, only one room agreed to convert their living space to a triple. Others living in large doubles elsewhere declined the offer to add a third roommate. While there is a slight financial incentive for tripling up ($410 according to the Dean of Students Office calculations), students have indicated that the incentive remains too low to encourage voluntary tripling and should be raised to account for the loss in space. Currently, 4 groups have agreed to the triple option with the possibility of a fifth triple room.

Students are also encouraged to look for housing off-campus. Thus far, 9 students have committed to living off-campus. Sixteen years ago, CMC offered financial incentives for students to move off-campus, but Dean Eric assures that, “we’re not there yet.”

McQueen says he doesn’t blame CMC’s administration for the housing crunch. “I felt like they handled the situation pretty well overall,” McQueen remarked, “Communication wasn’t stellar, but I feel like [Dean] Vos pursued every option he could given the cards he was dealt.”

The root of the housing problem is indeed the result of a number of compounding factors. Most often cited is the disproportionate desire to go abroad in the fall semester versus the spring semester, which translates to a squeeze on bed availability for those returning in January. Kristen Mallory at the Office of Off-Campus Study is working to balance the numbers of students abroad despite the continuing demand to study abroad in the fall—an initial survey of those planning to study abroad in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 showed a discrepancy of about 100 students preferring fall to spring. Dean Eric assures that the imbalance has been taken care of. “After accounting for attrition rates, moving students from fall to spring, and late additions,” said Dean Eric, “the numbers have balanced out to reasonable levels.  At this point, there is nothing to worry about for next year’s off campus study students and their spring housing.”

Of course, there are other factors that enter the equation. The opportunity to apply for a Residential Assistant (RA) position is only available in the spring and requires all applicants to be on campus at the time of their application. Students often want to get involved with student government and run for ASCMC office, yet can only do so in the spring term. Additionally, certain required courses are offered spring term only and can deter students from choosing the spring option for their off-campus study experience. The desire to be involved in campus life creates hesitancy among those students thinking about a spring semester abroad.

CMC has taken steps to address the root cause of the problem, working with the Office of Off-Campus Study and the Dean of Students Office to better coordinate their student numbers for the fall and spring. In order to avoid a housing crunch where tripling in double rooms and housing on Pomona’s South Campus remain the most viable options, the administration will have to look more closely at their methods of estimation regarding students both on and off CMC’s campus.

NOTE: The set of numbers posted earlier was incorrect. You may download the NEW room draw number list here.

Stay tuned to the Forum for all your room draw drama. Live, up-to-date floor plans are coming. Below is an earlier email from Dean Castro concerning room draw logistics:

PLEASE NOTE:

Exchange of priority numbers, falsifying documents, tampering with dorm charts, harassing, threatening or coercing another student into either leaving his or her chosen room or altering his or her room selection will result in judiciary action, loss of right to a room, and/or loss of the privilege to participate in the room selection process.

DOUBLE ROOMS:

If you would like to draw into a double room without a roommate, you must first seek written permission from Fid Castro in Heggblade Center.  No one will be allowed to draw into a double room by themselves without written permission. Anyone granted permission to draw into a double room without a roommate will be placed in the housing pool with all new (freshmen and transfers) and readmitted students, and will be assigned a roommate over the summer.

CLASS QUOTAS:

Approximately 10% of each residence hall is reserved for new students.

LOTTERY NUMBER GENERATION:

On or before April 16, lottery numbers will be randomly assigned by computer.  Lists of the lottery numbers sorted alphabetically and numerically will be posted at Story House.  Individual lottery numbers will be placed in student mailboxes on or before April 16.   Do not discard your lottery number. You must bring it with you to room Draw on your assigned draw night.

All students who are issued numbers must participate in Room Draw.  Students who fail to pay dorm damage amounts of $5.00 or more by Friday, April 9 before 5pm will not receive a lottery number.  Students who pay damages after the April 9 deadline, but prior to Room Draw, can still participate, but will be given a lottery number at the end of their class.

MEAL PLAN:

Students who will be living in the residence halls should be prepared to select a meal plan at Room Draw.  Your options are:  16 meals per week ($160 board plus), 12 meals per week ($120 board plus), or 8 meals per week ($80 board plus).  Students who live in the residence halls must choose a meal plan.  Those students who have received permission to be off the meal plan for medical reasons must submit a new letter from their physician stating why they should remain off the meal plan for the 2010-2011 academic year.

NORTH QUAD HALF-SUITES:

In North Quad suites, groups of four students will be able to draw into either both rooms facing north, or both rooms facing south.  In the pod suites, the option will be to draw into either both eastern rooms, or both western rooms.  There will be no option to draw into one northern and one southern room in traditional suites, nor one eastern and one western in the pods.

To exercise this housing option, all four students in the group must arrive together, and will draw based on the best lottery number of the four.  If there are no half-suites available when your four-person group enters Room Draw you will need to split up and follow the instructions for roommates (see “ROOMMATES” below). This may include one of the pairs leaving to draw at a later time if their lottery numbers are scheduled for a later time. Also, if any member of the four-person group withdraws from their selected room after Room Draw, the remaining roommates will be reassigned to a new location at the discretion of the Director of Residential Life.

OFF-CAMPUS LIVING OPTION:

If you wish to live off campus in 2010-2011, come to the Heggblade Center to pay your dorm damage (if $5.00 or more) and to sign up for the off-campus option.  Those who complete this by April 9 will be removed from the lottery and do not need to show up at Room Draw.  After April 9, those who wish to live off campus will get a lottery number and select off campus at Room Draw.  There will be a maximum of 50 students allowed to live off campus for the 2010-2011 academic year.  Married students and students with dependent children are automatically granted off-campus status and they need not come to Room Draw.

Students who decide during Room Draw to live on campus will only be allowed to move off campus at a later date under the following conditions: 1) a student on the off-campus list wishes to move into the space to be vacated on campus, and/or 2) the move is approved by the Director of Residential Life.  There will be a $100 late decision fee charged to any student who chooses to move off campus, with permission, after April 22, 2010.  Students who move off campus without permission, or who remain off campus without choosing that option at Room Draw, will also be subject to the $100 late decision fee and possible judicial action.

PROXIES:

If you will not be able to attend the room selection in person, you may assign a proxy to make the decision for you.  After you receive your lottery number (but prior to Room Draw) see Lyn Hughes in the Dean of Students Office in Heggblade Center to register your proxy.  If you are unable to find a proxy, you may ask Lyn to have a member of the Housing Committee serve as your proxy.

CONSTRUCTION:

Kravis Center construction and the Pomona College residence hall construction will continue through the 2010-2011 academic year.  The construction may continue to disrupt traffic and parking along Columbia, Eighth Street, and Ninth Street. There may continue to be noise associated with these projects.

RESIDENT TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS:

RTAs will be selected prior to Room Draw, and are guaranteed a space in the hall in which they will be serving.

ROOMMATES:

Those who choose to be roommates for the 2010-2011 academic year must go through Room Draw together, using the better of their two lottery numbers (or higher Room Draw ranking).  If only one of the two is able to attend the selection, a proxy must attend for the student who is unable to attend.  One roommate may serve as a proxy for another.  Proxies must be registered ahead of time with Lyn in the Dean of Students Office.

During the room selection process you will be choosing a room or a roommate for the entire 2010-2011 academic year.  You will be expected to take responsibility for the choices you make during the Room Draw process, and you will need to work out any conflicts that may arise between you and your roommate.  Once you have selected your room and roommate through the Room Draw process your decision will be binding for the full academic year and no additional changes will be made.

ROOM RATES:

Room rates for the 2010-2011 academic year will be determined in June.

ROOM GENDER DESIGNATIONS:

Beckett and Marks halls will continue to have coed floors with single sex bathrooms.  Stark Hall will also continue to have two coed floors (second and third floors) with single sex bathrooms. Rooms and floors in Claremont Hall will have no predetermined gender designation. Instead, the gender ratio will be fixed in advance and male and female students may select any room in the building during Room Draw until gender limits are met. Bathrooms for each gender will be present on each floor.

No other Mid or South Quad residence halls will have coed floors for the 2010-2011 academic year.

In Beckett, Marks, and Stark the gender split is essentially down the center of the hall, with men living on one side and women on the other.

Maps showing the gender of specific rooms will be posted in Armour Conference Room in Heggblade by Monday, April 19.

ROOM RETENTION:

Those roommates living in double rooms who wish to retain their current rooms for the 2010-2011 academic year must do so before 5pm on Friday, April 9.  This option is only open to those in double rooms, and both roommates must agree to retain.  Students who are the sole occupants of double rooms are not eligible for room retention.

Those students who want to retain their rooms need to complete the Room Retention Form (see Lyn in the Dean of Students Office) before 5pm on Friday, April 9.  Students who have not paid their dorm damage will be unable to retain their rooms.

ROOM SELECTION PRIORITY:

The room selection priority system will be based on your class standing (Senior, Junior, Sophomore, or Freshman), as determined by the Registrar.  Class groups will draw in numerical order on specified nights, based on lottery numbers.

Room selection will take place in the Curb Conference room in Heggblade Center beginning at 6pm each night.

A detailed time schedule for room selection by lottery numbers will be on the back of your lottery memo.

If neither you nor your proxy is present at the Heggblade Center for Room Draw at the time your number is called, you will be called again after 20-30 minutes.  If at that time you (or your proxy) have not arrived, Room Draw will proceed, and the next group of students will begin to select rooms.

SINGLE-ROOM WAITING LIST:

If no single rooms remain available at the time your number is called during Room Draw, you may elect to be placed on the Single-Room Waiting List.  At the discretion of the Director of Residential Life, students on the waiting list will be contacted if singles become available.  The list will be valid until October 1^st.

SMOKING:

CMC has a “courtesy policy” for smoking in student rooms.  See the Guide to Student Life, page 9 (http://www.cmc.edu/dos/cmcguide/CMC_Guide_2009-2010.pdf).

Claremont Hall is a non-smoking hall, in accordance with the environmental guidelines that determine its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating.

APARTMENTS:

Students who have been accepted to live in the CMC Student Apartments or College Park for the 2010-2011 academic year will not participate in any part of the Room Draw process.

SUBSTANCE-FREE RESIDENCE HALL:

Those who wish to live in a community free from tobacco products, alcohol, and other drugs may select Stark Hall during Room Draw.

Your signed license agreement includes an agreement not to bring these substances into the building, and to not allow your guests to do so.  You may review the actual license agreement by seeing Lyn in the Heggblade Center.

Many students feel that the room draw process is as arbitrary as drawing names from a hat.

In the past, students applied for apartments in groups of four, entering a weighted lotto in with each student was assigned a point value based on his or her number of credits.  This system divided students by semester as well as year, making it nearly impossible to get an apartment if you were a semester behind (or even one class short of completing a semester) without having another member of your apartment balance you out by being a semester ahead.

Under the upcoming system, which the administration plans to announce soon, there will be no more arcane points totals and unforgiving margins of error.  Students will simply be sophomores, juniors, or seniors, aligning the system with that used by the registrar’s office and making it rather more generous in the process.  This system will allow students who are behind academically, even to the point where they will be December graduates the year after their proper graduation date to be counted as members of their entering class for the apartment lotto, benefiting students who took a semester off or otherwise ended up behind in credits.

The committee also considered a scheme in which each member of a group would be assigned an individual lotto number and the group could use the highest of them in consideration for an apartment but it was poorly received by the Deans and abandoned.

The new College Park apartments will be integrated with the revised lotto system.

Although the administration did not disclose many details of the program, Huang commented that, “If students prefer to rent directly from College Park, they may do so provided they sign up to live off-campus next year,” suggesting that students renting from CMC will be subject to the College’s rules, while those renting directly from College Park are on their own. This year, Dean of Students has created a Resident Assistant position at College Park, which serves as a further indication that CMCers living at College Park and renting from CMC will indeed governed by the Basic Rule of Conduct.

Until more details are announced, several questions remain about the impact of this plan. The price of a CMC College Park apartment compared to a dorm room or the Senior Apartments (or even to privately-managed apartments) is still unknown, and students have expressed concern, despite its small scale, about the impact of the new housing on campus life.

Expect updates (or campus-wide emails) on the matter as the story develops and more details are made available.

The Peeker

It’s 1:30 AM. She’s just checking in to see what you’re up to. Want to go to In-n-Out? No? Ok…. Breakfast at ten? … Oh! Hey again. Just seeing who is on the toilet. I’ll be in my room.

The DJ

Has surround sound. Loves to throw DPs. Told you last year your Kings of Leon was “emo shit” until she heard it on MTV this week. Thinks it is okay to crank that Soulja Boy at 2am on Wednesday. Oh, and she actually believes she discovered Vampire Weekend.

The Wildcard

Tuesday night you went to the reading room with him. Mild mannered. Might get straight A’s. But last Saturday night you found him in the Ath courtyard holding two Scrippsies hostage with a megaphone, no underwear, and a takeout container full of vomit/churros.

The Miracle Student

Is always down for Pub. No regular sleep schedule that you can discern. You’ve never had a class with him and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t even own a copy of Microsoft Word.

The Moocher

He’ll hit you back, can you just pick up a thirty rack? He is going to the ATM tomorrow anyways. Also, you are worried he might be using your electric shaver…and not on his face.

The Relationship Kid

Maybe she has been dating “The One” since 11th grade. Maybe she has a new “one” every week. You don’t even bother sleeping on a friend’s couch anymore. Your double is pretty much a triple. Basically, the rule is “as long as you don’t wake me up…”

The Stranger

No one is really sure how she ended up in the suite. Maybe she had a good room-draw number. Or maybe, she was your friend’s freshman roommate and they never had that awkward conversation. When you tell your friends, “I’m going to dinner with my suite-mates, Sarah, Emily, and Anne,” they respond, “Wait, who is Anne?”

The Diva

He moisturizes. You can’t pronounce the name of his shampoo. You couldn’t even guess the thread count on his towel, let alone his bathrobe. Gets more face-time with the mirror than The Wildcard gets with the toilet.

Lesser Archetypes: The Naked Kid, The Absentee, The Slob, The Neatfreak, The Host, The Rich One, The Cheapskate, The Fighter, The Easy One, The Prude, The Planner, The Puker, The Driver, The Hermit, The Whiner, The Instigator.

Feel free to post your own.

On the first day of this semester, I went to Ethan Andyshak, the Director of Residential Life, and requested to be moved to a single. He informed me that for a variety of reasons some students were not going to be returning this semester and that there was a chance he’d be able to fill my request. He’d said he would get back to me with an answer in no longer than one week.

It has been a little over two months. I have yet to receive a response. I have had my countless emails outright ignored. I have had five pointless meetings. I have talked with Fid Castro, Ethan Andyshak’s direct superior. And I have yet to receive one freaking definitive word. Not a yes, not a no. I still have stuff piled in my car in preparation for a potential move that I have been told over and over again could occur any day now.

This is what I have been able to cobble together about the housing situation as I sifted through the maze of double speak that has been spewed my way. First, there still are open singles. Multiple singles. However, as much as it pains me to say this, I can kind of understand why I have not been put into one of these open rooms. I have been told they are keeping them open in order to create flexibility during the RA change over. This does make sense to me. They have strung me along by claiming I may still receive one of these rooms after spring break. I have a sneaking suspicion that this article might be the nail in my coffin that prevents this from happening.

The real reason I am angry goes as follows. At the beginning of the year there were students living in singles requesting to live in doubles anywhere. While I am left to wonder why these people were put in singles to begin with, I’ll ignore that question for the time being. It is important to keep in mind that this information has come straight from Mr. Andyshak himself. The truth could be even more ridiculous than what he has happened to let slip during our numerous conversations.

These were students who wanted to move to doubles, so switching rooms would have been a net benefit for both sides. However, because of the bureaucracy of the system I was not put into contact with any of the several people requesting to move into a double until last week. That would be 2 full months after I first made my request. Unsurprisingly, at this point in the year they were so settled into their rooms that they no longer wanted to move.

I want to make clear that I don’t want this article to be seen as a personal attack. For all I know Ethan Andyshak is merely following protocol. If this is the case, it’s not with him that I have a problem. It’s rather with the painfully inefficient bureaucracy of the system. I fully understand that not all requests can be honored. But I don’t feel like it is asking too much to say that requests should be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. A yes when willing parties exist, and a no when they do not—that’s all I really want from my housing department.

Housing is an important part of our college experience. From what I have heard anecdotally, I am not the only one who experienced this sort of turmoil. This article was really just me being a whiner. Tell me your stories. If you plan to apply to be an RA in the future and are worried about retribution, post anonymously, but these wrongs must be aired. Maybe once and for all we can help destroy the bureaucratic red tape that defines CMC’s housing policies.

Some were placed in Stark, Fawcett, Phillips, Beckett, Marks… and some are on Pomona’s campus (south campus).

Post a comment if you hear any funny stories.