No matter what potential Clustered Learning, Advocacy, and Support for Students holds for RPI, it means a big change and big changes are often difficult. Recent housing reform has not been met with open arms, whether unhappiness has been voiced through a Facebook group of 1,200 students or through the fretting heard in the hallways. Right now, the Rensselaer community needs to stick together and communicate. Kudos to Grand Marshal Michael Zwack ’11 for organizing an informal discussion about the housing process. The meeting is tomorrow at 8 pm in the Student Government Suite. If the housing reform affects you, make it a point to come to the meeting to both voice concerns and get answers to your questions. If you cannot make it or you have questions later, contact Resident Life and ask. They’re there to help you make the most out of your on-campus housing experience.
These changes mostly benefit the freshmen, so they should think about what they want out of the experience. The First-Year Experience is a strong, nationally recognized program and you can be a part of making the Sophomore-Year Experience just as strong.
There are 828 beds designated specifically for upperclassmen, and this year there are about 1,000 upperclassmen living on campus. However, these numbers do not mean that there will be 200 homeless students camping out in the Armory. Resident Life has a good history of placing everybody on the wait-list in a room. To alleviate a potential pitfall, agreements have been made with themed housing, such as Ground Zero, to ensure that strong student groups stay intact.
Know your dates and keep on top of everything. The freshmen lottery is the weekend after next, so if you haven’t already, start thinking about where you want to live. For upperclassmen, lottery signups are beginning that same week, so mark it on your calendar.
This is a great opportunity for us as students to show that we can constructively offer ideas to the administration and an equally great opportunity for the administration to show that they can make decisions and carry them out sans miscommunication.