In an attempt to make the housing sign-up process simpler, the Department of Residence Life changed some of its policies and practices.

Last year the process was decentralized with Resident Assistants and Hall Coordinators working to collect information and room requests and running room sign-ups. This year, the entire process was centralized to the main office in the Busch Memorial Center. Last year the priority for sign-up times was based on the number of credit hours a person had. According to Argyle Wade, associate director of Residence Life, the department changed the priority system to be based on the class a person would be in during the fall semester because of suggestions from the Residence Hall Association.

“Overall, we are happy with the process. There were benefits in centralizing our systems to one office,” Wade said. He added that next year there will probably be more involvement of the in-hall staff for purposes of information distribution.

“As always, we will be working with RHA and SGA to evaluate the process in order to refine it for next year,” he commented.

There are still some unknowns for Residence Life about housing in 2001-2002.

According to Wade, it is still too early to tell if there will be a “housing crunch” for incoming freshmen.

Last year Residence Life converted O’Brien House, the basement of Walsh Hall and old chapter rooms of DeMattias Hall into dormitory rooms for this year’s freshmen. Wade said that all those spaces will continue to function as housing in the upcoming school year.Housing contracts are due on May 1. Wade said that while the department is keeping a tab on the numbers, it won’t know exactly how many open spots it has and how many incoming freshmen will be seeking housing until then.