Editorial Making the Commons Lovable

Author: [no author name found]

College administrators have known from the very beginning that the greatest source of student discontent with the Commons system is the housing inequities that the system creates. Rising seniors in Ross and Atwater are virtually guaranteed penthouse suites in their modern, multi-million dollar complexes, while rising seniors in Brainerd and Wonnacott look forward to a senior year in quaint modular homes by the college recycling plant. While room draw has been continually evaluated and improved over the last decade, each revision of the room draw process has perpetuated these inequities, shutting off certain senior housing from certain students through a system that emphasizes Commons loyalty over fairness.

Last Sunday, the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate passed a smart bill, with extensive student support, to finally overhaul this illogical system.

By the SGA's recommendation, senior room draw would be converted into a fully "open draw" system, with only junior counselors receiving any priority in the system. For underclassmen the current system would be preserved, but any senior would compete on equal footing to live with anyone they wanted, anywhere on campus. It does not get much more fair than that. The proposal additionally recommends that an online room draw system be created so students know their odds of getting certain housing and keep track of where they stand - a thoughtful addition for the many rising seniors who must compete for housing while studying abroad the spring semester of their junior year.

Beyond removing the last major roadblock to cross-campus Commons love, the bill offers Middlebury seniors a perk and liberty that respects their independence without sacrificing the benefits of a residential college. The College currently denies Middlebury seniors the freedom to house and feed themselves as they might at other larger institutions, offering limited opportunities for off-campus living and no option to leave the standard dining plan. The benefits of having a campus where everyone, from first-years to seniors, interacts with one another on a regular basis, are worth the costs. But offering seniors the freedom to live wherever on campus, with whomever they want, promises to grant them much deserved independence at no cost to the leadership and community they provide by living on-campus.

Most exciting about the room draw bill, however, is not its recommendation but the unusual efficiency and energy with which it was carried through the SGA Senate. In only a matter of weeks, SGA President Alex Stanton '07 and Chief of Staff Isabel Yordan '07 led a campus-wide survey, initiated a discussion of the student responses, composed a sensible bill and brought it to a vote of approval. As one of the top College administrators overseeing college housing, Dean of the College Tim Spears should now match that commitment to see that this bill passes whatever hurdles it faces to be implemented in time for this year's room draw. We see no valid reason this change could not be implemented in time for the spring 2007 room draw. If administrators are concerned about the effects on Commons loyalty or punishing juniors in Ross or Atwater Commons, the proposed alternative of a weighted open draw, where seniors would get extra points based on the number of semesters that they spent in a single Commons, is more than fair in addressing those concerns.

Beyond dissolving lingering student resentment for the Commons system, this bill has the potential to restore student confidence in the SGA in a way that no public relations campaign or other device ever could. We hope that everyone involved in enacting this recommendation from here on will realize the greater significance for student interest and involvement in campus policymaking. If the administration embraces and works expediently to enact this student-supported policy, the potential for what could be accomplished by students working to address social life and other major campus dilemmas, would seem tremendous.