Ricky Ochilo, staff writer

Students will have to get used to new procedures for registering for housing for next semester. John Verner, Director of Housing at Warren Wilson, explained. The Student Life Committee passed these new changes. Verner added that the housing office was simply implementing the new changes.

Verner mentioned that the new procedures for keeping current rooms are affected slightly. The existing policy does not require students who intend to maintain their room to have a roommate already chosen. However, Verner noted that “squatter rights” will now make sure that students have a current roommate if they intend to keep their room. The second change affects the Village and Schaefer residence halls.

"[In Schafer] there must be at least one half of the current suite coming back to the suite to maintain squatter rights,” Verner said. In addition, the students must be able to fill any empty spaces in the suites. This places an unfamiliar burden on students. Students will now have to spend a considerable amount of time in search of roommates.
According to Verner, the old policy allowed students to keep control of their room/suite until a lottery took place. Another change that has been suggested is having “theme suites or affinity suites”—where students with similar goals live together, Verner said. He mentioned that Shepard has been a theme residence hall for the past two years.

Verner feels that for one, the committee’s intent was to create more space for incoming students. In the past, Housing has had difficulties placing new students with continuing ones. Similarly, Housing faces greater obstacles when trying to place new students during orientation week. Entering freshmen who might be placed with juniors or seniors will sometimes feel separated from the new freshmen. Verner explained that even new students placed with continuing students in the suites immediately become “outsiders.” Another reason for the changes is to serve the common interests of the students. Students who have the same goals can live together and build a home for each other with shared common interests.

Despite the changes Student Life made, some students will still be affected negatively. More pressure will be placed on students to look for people they would want to live with. However, friends of students might not want to relocate to other dorms based on preference, and overall atmosphere of the specific residence halls. In addition, if students fail to secure a roommate, it leaves the room up for the taking by other students. Another negative scenario is having the student relocated to another residence hall and paired up with someone else. Although the changes are geared towards fostering common goals between students, they may also take away the sense of comfort established by many students who have lived in certain residence halls for a long time.

Conversely, Verner feels that the changes will limit some challenges that Housing has been facing for years. For example, fitting new students with continuing ones was always hard. Now the changes will limit how much of that work housing has to do. Notwithstanding, Verner maintained that students do have “unique situations” and will be affected in one way or another. He said that the changes will be further examined, reviewed and discussed with the Student Life Committee next year.