New housing assignments help explain Residence Life housing strategy
Emily Bartelheim
News Editor
Last week, rising upperclassmen students at The College of Wooster participated in the room selection process. Every student receives a room draw number (which is generated at random) and has an assigned time to select their future room. Roommates select their room together according to the time associated with the lowest of their numbers.
For the coming academic year (2012-2013), Wagner, Compton, Bissman, Douglass and Bornhuetter Halls will continue to house first-year students. This year (2011-2012), upperclassmen women lived on the first floor of Douglass. “Next year, we’ll most likely need to utilize another wing or floor for upperclassmen but we have yet to determine where that will be,” said Krista Kronstein, director of Residence Life.
The College also holds its admissions host program in Douglass Hall, which consists of students that have an open spot in their room where a prospective student can stay when they want to come for a visit.
Greek groups will continue to live primarily in houses during the next academic year. “When [Greeks] were in Bissman, they were running into challenges of having their sections filled because people didn’t want to live in Bissman,” Kronstein said. “We had a larger first-year class [for the 2010-2011 academic year] so we wanted to utilize Bissman’s space as a first-year center, so we moved the Greeks to houses, and things are going pretty well.”
This coming summer (2012), dormitories will continue receiving cosmetic upgrades, which include new furniture and re-painting. Kenarden Lodge is one of the dorms to receive these improvements. Armington Hall and Stevenson Hall both received new furniture and paint this past summer (2011).
Currently, there is no option during room draw for “block housing.” Block housing is “a group of students centered around a topic that live in a block of rooms together,” said Kronstein. “The Akaa project has a group of rooms in the lower level of Kenarden right now, but we don’t have any block housing outside of the language suites in Luce right now.”
Housing selection for future upperclassmen is based on room draw numbers and who they pick as their roommates. In the past, block housing was offered as an option but students didn’t take advantage of it, so it was removed as a housing option.
Currently, the College has rising upperclassmen students “who are in a waitlist scenario,” Kronsein said. Every year, Residence Life reserves a certain number of rooms for incoming first-year students. Right now, there are 650 beds offline. “Once we have a better idea from Admissions of what the first-year class is going to look like, we’ll be able to release some of those rooms and start housing some of our current waitlisted students,” Kronstein said. “After Thursday [April 14], we found ourselves in the waitlist situation.”
This year there are more men on the waitlist, while in the past there usually were more women than men. All students that are on the waitlist will be guaranteed housing.
“We’re a residential campus and we’re committed to the residential experience,” Kronstein said.