Residence life at St Lawrence University is currently focusing on giving students equal opportunity for the housing lottery. There has been a rise in the concern for students stuck on the sophomore wait-list following their first housing lottery. Residence life has been working towards a proposal to help accommodate wait-listed sophomores.
The Assistant Dean of Student Life and Director of Residence Life, Christopher Marquart, and Senior Associate Director of Residence Life, Stacie Olney LaPierre, presented a proposal to the student senators of Thelmo. Last Wednesday introduced a possible solution to rising sophomores not satisfied with their housing. The proposed idea gives priority to rising juniors that were previously on the sophomore wait-list to prevent possibly two years of poor lottery numbers.
“For example, if there were 150 sophomores on the wait-list last year, that 150 would be randomly generated between 1-150 and have priority over the other juniors that were not on the wait-list the previous year,” Olney LaPierre explained. “This would help create some more equality in terms of those wait listed sophomores not getting a bad number since they would put in a room chosen by Res. Life the year before.
The housing lottery at SLU goes by seniority. Each class size is represented between the numbers 1,000 and 4. The seniors 1,000’s, the juniors 2,000’s, and the sophomores 3,000’s. These numbers are all randomly generated based on the size of each class and the lowest numbers get the best pick (hence the seniors being 1,000).
Both Marquart and Olney LaPierre made it clear that this proposal is something that can still be modified with the help of student feedback. “We feel that being at a smaller school, it is easier for us to get feedback from students about ideas like this to help make living situations better for all,” Olney LaPierre said. “This is the main reason why we went to Thelmo, because we wanted initial thoughts and feedback from student senators.”
Senators from Thelmo expressed their thoughts and concerns with the possible change. The Arts and Entertainment chair of Thelmo, Hammidou Sylla ‘20, questioned housing options for sophomores is so scarce.
“Well, we never know exactly how many first-years we get until move-in day,” Marquart explains. “ The reason behind that is a lot of people do not show up, a lot of students decide to go aboard, and the housing lottery is in April, so we never know exactly how much space to leave for the first-years.” Multiple sophomores get put on the wait list every year because they are not satisfied with the housing options that are available when it is their turn to choose. “We do our best to find better options if anything pops up,” Marquart said.
“This a big- if not the biggest issue in terms of housing at SLU, and we do not have an explanation for it,” Marquart said. “We want to strive for a fair chance for everybody to be satisfied with their housing and we are open to all ideas about how to do that.”