2008 Woodie Awards
'Same room' selection eliminated from housing
Bridgette Blight
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: News
02/28/08 - Upperclassmen at the University of Rhode Island will no longer be able to reserve their current room for the next year due to changes in housing registration policy. Also, unlike this year, Wiley and Garrahy halls will only be available for future juniors and seniors.
Jeff Plouffe, assistant director of Housing and Residential Life, came up with the new plan for housing registration after hearing feedback from students. He described HRL as a customer service-based department at URI, and said that student complaints are incorporated into decisions made by HRL. However, HRL can not agree to every suggestion made by students.
"It is about fairly allocating the limited resource that we have," Plouffe said.
There are approximately 2,300 beds available in upperclassman housing. If more than 2,300 students sign up for housing in the fall, there is a chance that some upperclassmen, probably sophomores, will be placed in triple rooms.
Placing upperclassmen in triple rooms is a last resort, Plouffe said. This caveat has been included in the housing registration packet for the last four years but has never been used. Plouffe said that feedback from the students would help HRL determine where to place tripled students. Some options he discussed were giving triples currently allocated to freshmen to sophomores instead. He also suggested converting rooms in some suite-style dorms like Barlow Hall into triples because Barlow doubles are slightly larger than some of the other double rooms on campus.
Only freshmen and upperclassmen currently living on campus are eligible to register for housing. The process for submitting an application is the same. The difference comes when students choose a room. There will be a few days for registration depending on how many students sign up. The registration days will go in the order of seniority, with fifth and sixth year seniors first. The students for each class year will be randomly assigned a time to register, and the students for each registration time will be given a "registration number" so that there is no benefit to students arriving at the registration room excessively early.
Jeff Plouffe, assistant director of Housing and Residential Life, came up with the new plan for housing registration after hearing feedback from students. He described HRL as a customer service-based department at URI, and said that student complaints are incorporated into decisions made by HRL. However, HRL can not agree to every suggestion made by students.
"It is about fairly allocating the limited resource that we have," Plouffe said.
There are approximately 2,300 beds available in upperclassman housing. If more than 2,300 students sign up for housing in the fall, there is a chance that some upperclassmen, probably sophomores, will be placed in triple rooms.
Placing upperclassmen in triple rooms is a last resort, Plouffe said. This caveat has been included in the housing registration packet for the last four years but has never been used. Plouffe said that feedback from the students would help HRL determine where to place tripled students. Some options he discussed were giving triples currently allocated to freshmen to sophomores instead. He also suggested converting rooms in some suite-style dorms like Barlow Hall into triples because Barlow doubles are slightly larger than some of the other double rooms on campus.
Only freshmen and upperclassmen currently living on campus are eligible to register for housing. The process for submitting an application is the same. The difference comes when students choose a room. There will be a few days for registration depending on how many students sign up. The registration days will go in the order of seniority, with fifth and sixth year seniors first. The students for each class year will be randomly assigned a time to register, and the students for each registration time will be given a "registration number" so that there is no benefit to students arriving at the registration room excessively early.