Director of Residence Life Pete Snyder said that some people may think it’s strange that his department is still trying to find rooms for people, but he said that nothing in the department is concrete. “We’re still assigning students in August and after the residence halls open,” he said. “It’s in constant motion.”

Snyder said that this year they saw an increase of 59 students squatting, but that was accompanied by a drop of 13 in intra-hall squatting. On the other end of things, 24 more students than last year signed up for the lottery. Then, on the day of the lottery, 12 more students submitted applications for housing. At the end of the lottery on Sunday, these numbers led to students not finding their first choices open, and some refused the options available to them, such as being the second person in a room already occupied by someone.

Since the lottery, Residence Life has already sent out 38 offers for housing to students who either did not pick a room through the lottery or who submitted an application late. Snyder said that when they make offers to people, they look at what the person wrote down as their preference, and try to find them something similar; i.e. suggesting Warren Hall if the person requested Nugent.

“The biggest fight is to keep students from getting discouraged about their number,” said Snyder of the lottery process. He said he is always counseling people to still try to get a room, since a lot of people usually do not follow through. This year, he pointed out, someone with a single digit number didn’t show up.

Snyder said the number of rooms available each year is one of the most fluid parts of the process. He says he remembers years where there were still single rooms available, as well as years where upperclassmen were housed in converted lounges. Snyder continued that in recent years, occupancy has seldom been at 100 percent, but did say that if there was a shortage of rooms at any point of the future, he would sooner put up students in places such as the Best Western than force triples or house students in the lounges again.

One of the trends Residence Life is seeing is a growing demand by graduate students for on-campus housing. In order to satisfy that demand, they have set aside a group of rooms in the Colonie-D building for year-round graduate student housing. In addition, the Institute has purchased a building at 901 People’s Avenue which they will be renovating and turning into housing for single graduate students.

At present, the administration department is planning a new dorm to be built at East Campus, but Snyder said that those plans are not on the fast track. There is currently no timetable available for when it will be built, and a design has not yet been decided. He said he is certain that something will be built up near Sunset Terrace, but the when and what is far from decided.