OCTOBER is always a hectic month for upperclassmen attempting to figure out the following year’s housing arrangements. But for a select few, this year has been even more harrowing. Because the University has decided to limit future residency in Hereford College primarily to first-year students, many current Hereford residents have seen themselves kicked out of their rooms. This flies in the face of the bedrock principle of on-Grounds University housing, as stated on the University Housing Division’s Web site, that a student always has a right to reserve his or her current room for the following year if he or she wishes. Recently, however, a disclaimer has been made for those living in Hereford, that the University is “reviewing space allocations” for next year.
The department relies on this rule to help attract students to on-Grounds housing, but many Hereford residents will be denied this right and forced to live elsewhere. This comes as a result of reconstruction of first-year buildings, as well as the growth of the incoming Class of 2013, both of which have restricted the options available to incoming first-years such that they need to be moved to alternate locations. Hereford is seen as an appropriate destination — meaning its residents are being punished for the school’s poor planning. The Alderman Road buildings are “coming down faster than expected,” said Carol Wood, University spokesperson, in a Cavalier Daily news article last week. But neither that nor the increasing sizes of incoming classes is the fault of any student. Some, however, are facing consequences as though it were.
Perhaps this decision is more understandable in light of the notion that satisfying first-year students seems a higher priority for the University Housing Division than caring for returning upperclassmen. Clearly, the location of first-year dorms is more desirable than those of other on-Grounds, upperclassmen options. Requiring returning upperclassmen to vacate their rooms for first-year students, even if it isn’t the University’s ideal solution, is another step that verifies this philosophy. If there is a shortage of on-Grounds housing, then displacing upperclassmen to make way for first-year students represents merely a partial solution that leaves fewer on-Grounds spaces for everyone else.
This move would be unfair to Hereford residents in the best circumstances, but the lateness of the decision has exacerbated the problem. In particular, Hereford residents will now find it difficult to locate an available off-Grounds apartment or house because they have missed signing dates. If this decision was going to be made, it should have been announced much earlier in the school year — particularly since none of the issues prompting it occurred without warning. That would have at least given the affected students more flexibility in searching for an alternative. Instead, not only were they denied a right given to all other on-Grounds students, but they were also informed in a careless manner. As The Cavalier Daily reported last week, Hereford residents attempting to sign up online to live in their rooms next year were unaware of any potential problems until they were met with the label of “displaced student.” The timing and execution of the decision thus created even more confusion and uncertainty than necessary.
When reached for comment, Wood provided The Cavalier Daily with a letter recently e-mailed to Hereford residents outlining the reasons for the change and offering alternatives for the residents to consider. Under certain circumstances, a few residents may be able to live in Hereford next year, but it is more likely that they will be forced to move elsewhere, and the shift will produce inconveniences even for those who remain in the college. For example, the letter informed residents that, “If you are currently living in a double room and your roommate is not resigning, you will be assigned a single room on the same floor or within the same building.”
The letter also stated that Hereford residents would have “priority selection of any available upper-class housing option.” This is a reasonable step in the right direction, as the University Housing Division should try to guarantee on-Grounds housing wherever possible for current Hereford residents who desire it, even if that means denying spaces to interested upperclassmen who did not live there the previous year. Returning students who have used on-Grounds housing in the past should not have that avenue closed — particularly given the difficulties of signing up to live off-Grounds this late in the year.
Yet this solution does not compensate for the unexpected hassles that most Hereford residents have had to face this year. As someone who lives in on-Grounds housing, I consider myself lucky that I was spared from being casually informed that I would need to find another place to live for next year. The University goes to great lengths to make its new students comfortable, but it should not do so at the expense of everyone else, especially students who live in its dorms.
Grant Johnson’s column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at g.johnson@cavalierdaily.com.
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