More CLLC change needed
I am one of the unfortunate students who have been negatively affected by the decision to change housing from a credit-based system to one based on class status (“CLLC makes big changes,” Jan. 23, p. 1). As a rising junior going into last year’s housing lottery, I was in the position, as were many others, of being left with no housing.
Due to a very lucky outcome I ended up in 1959 E Street during the fall semester. This is where the change in housing rules really leaves me, and I am sure countless others, in a tough situation, since I am a second-year student with junior standing.
I am currently studying abroad as a junior in London. I will say that part of my decision to study abroad this year as opposed to next fall included the fact that I would still get good housing when I returned, but now I feel that is a longshot at best. Also, since I am abroad I have no right to squat and stay in the same room I occupied this fall. For me, this violates the very logic of GW’s decision to change the rule. From what I could gather in The Hatchet article, as well as in my conversation with the Community Living and Learning Center, the decision was reached so that as you stayed at GW you got better or at least equal housing. Well, in my case that system gets turned upside-down.
I actually have a better system in mind than either the current system of class status or the previous credit-based system. Housing should be based on graduation year. Thus, people who are graduating this year as seniors would get the best housing.
This would ensure that you could be in housing with people going through the same process of applying to graduate school, taking exams, getting a job, etc. Furthermore, this would agree with the GW logic that the people who have no more opportunities at GW should get the best housing.
-Ari Sulby, junior
Make a real fix
Either Seth Weinshel, director of the Community Living and Learning Center, has a very bad case of short-term memory loss or he and his office have, in fact, chosen not to listen to the demands of students (“CLLC makes big changes,” Jan. 23, p. 1).
Of the many opinions put forth in The Hatchet this past spring – before and after last year’s housing nightmare – many argued that “working your way up” was CLLC’s way of offering incoming freshmen spacious and structurally acceptable rooms, while shutting rising sophomores and some juniors into some of the most decrepit buildings this side of the Capitol.
Some of us lucked out, getting decent rooms where we only have a problem getting cold water to come out of the tap or our ancient radiator won’t shut off or even worked overtime during last week’s heat wave. I have other friends who got stuck in buildings where plaster falls down from the ceilings, the sound of gas escaping from heating pipes goes on day and night and where their pipes burst over winter break. They came back to flooded rooms and property management personnel who do little more than stick a piece of chewing gum and a paper clip on the pipes to fix the problem.
It also seems that some sophomores could get stuck living in the same dorms they were in this year: FSK, Guthridge or Intertnational House. For the most expensive national research university in the nation, this is unacceptable. CLLC staff needs to review this plan immediately before they stick 200-plus rising second-year students on the non-guaranteed wait list like they did last year. Stop guaranteeing housing spots to seniors and start doing complete structural overhauls of the older residence halls on campus or demolish them completely and build anew.
Welcome, class of 2009, to The George Washington University, the wealthiest slum lord in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the capital of the free world … and good luck with housing selection.
-Eric Soucie, sophomore
