For the past year the Residence Hall Association’s leadership has forgotten what it is supposed to do for the students living on campus.
First, RHA has become a political body, something it has never been in the past. Its leadership has made enemies and very few, if any, friends. And most importantly, it has been disrespectful to University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s administration, which in the end does not help RHA’s cause. RHA must work constructively with the administration to make housing on this campus better, but it seems that instead RHA’s leadership has been working against the administration at every turn. Without the help of the administration, what is RHA supposed to accomplish? After all, the administration sets the housing policy, not RHA, despite what this year’s leadership may think.
As The Hatchet reported last year (“RHA proposes lottery changes,” Nov. 16, 2000), RHA changed the housing lottery system “to smooth GW’s transition to mandatory sophomore on-campus housing by 2002.” (check this quote) This year’s housing lottery committee failed to investigate what last year’s committee discussed in meetings, policies the administration had set forth, and finally what last year’s committee accomplished. This is evident by current RHA President Noel Frame’s complete surprise in the mandatory sophomore housing policy.
As a member of the housing lottery committee last year, I was informed then that all sophomores would be required to live on campus by 2002. If any of this year’s housing lottery committee persons had bothered to ask me, I would have been happy to tell them what I had learned last year, and I’m sure other committee members would have as well.
RHA has accomplished one major thing this year: on-line housing selection. But the question whether this is a good idea. Last year’s committee wrestled with the same problem. We were introduced with an on-line housing system and decided that it was a poor choice because it needed more testing.
In the past, students have been required to make split second decisions about housing and with whom they want to live. This year, students will not be able to have every possible roommate in J Street with them. How will this change the selection dynamic? Also, some students are not able to find roommates until the day of the housing lottery. What happens to those students? RHA has planned a Roommate Rendezvous, but almost as an afterthought. And if history repeats itself, it will be like last year’s Roommate Rendezvous where roughly 20 people attended.
Finally, the distribution of rooms itself is absolutely horrendous this year. Apparently, RHA’s Housing Lottery Committee has failed to set foot in any of the buildings on this campus, which is pretty amazing seeing that they all live on campus. Guthridge Hall has now become a sophomore residence; this should outrage seniors and juniors. If RHA had looked at last year’s housing lottery statistics, they would know that Guthridge is always the first building to fill up in the housing lottery. RHA also failed to give singles in Guthridge to upperclassmen, so this year’s sophomore class is truly the luckiest sophomore class to attend GW.
My advice to RHA’s leadership is to figure out why things have gone so wrong this year and fix them. Communicate with persons that have done the job you are doing right now; they know what its like and they are probably willing to help if you were willing to ask. And most importantly, listen to the students on this campus. They have a voice that deserves to be heard, and you’re ignoring them.
-The writer, a senior majoring in political science, served on the 2000-01 RHA Housing Committee.