By Anonymous

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In the month of March, sophomores, juniors and seniors are in chaos. One would think what is stressing us out are midterms, projects, and papers due. However, what one does not know is that determining where each of us will be living next year is causing this commotion. Upper classmen are on a thin line of having shelter or living in a cardboard box. One may ask, “How sure are we that we are guaranteed no housing?” And our answer is simple; you either pay or you get screwed over. Many upper classmen students are forced to live off campus due to the effects of the lottery system, which we are at the mercy of, is unfair especially when we are paying almost fifty-thousand dollars to come to this school, therefore; we deserve to have enough housing for everyone.

A major problem with on campus housing is the method in which the students pick their future living space. At the moment, there is a random lottery system that categorizes each student into either a rising sophomore, rising junior, or rising senior based on his or her credits earned. From there, the student is received a number by random in the range given to their respected category and each lottery number is given a specific time to pick a room for both themselves and any roommates that were paired with them. Although this system does its job, there are flaws that should be fixed to create a more fair system of housing. The lottery number system works effectively, the time schedules for selecting rooms is a problem because for many people their given time occurred during one of their class periods. This meant that either they had to miss class or possibly not receive the room they previously wanted. This is an unfair choice because one could mean the difference between a good or bad test grades while the other could mean living in a room they feel uncomfortable in for a full two semesters.

Being able to live on campus comfortably is a pleasure. The café, the C-store, and our classes are easier to get to from our dorms and one does not have to worry about walking 30 minutes to get home. However, if you live off campus, you MUST have a car because traveling from school to home and vice versa using public transportation is a hassle. Students who live in Forest, which are dormitories considered on campus dorms, are always complaining how far it is to get to class, and when the weather gets bad, it is impossible to get on campus. For example, two of my Step teammates live at Forest and they say that walking back alone late at night is something they wish would change. In addition, as current students at the University of New Haven, we have seen many other students including friends transfer to another school after the first semester as freshmen. So there should be no reason why students who want to live on campus should not be able to. I actually just met a freshman yesterday afternoon that was telling me that not only is he transferring to UConn because of UNH tuition, but also because he will not be living on campus. He will be put on the waiting list and most likely live off campus. UNH has so much to offer students but what they don’t see is that these students are being driven away due to no solution for students with no housing.

Due to the fact that this school accepts so many incoming freshmen many of us are stuck in rooms only meant for two people or three people but have another roommate or two in those rooms. I am in Bixler Hall and I am being forced to triple in a room meant for doubles. It is very tight on space to have three people here when the room is not designed to hold any more than the proper amount of students. The only good side to being forced to triple is the two checks we get from the school paying us to basically suffer. I have talked with many students forced to triple in multiple buildings and they all say it is terrible being stuck in small rooms with too many people. Everyone says the school needs to do something about housing whether its buying land surrounding the school and building more dorms or lowering the amount of incoming freshmen they accept so all upper classmen can have the choice to live on campus since we pay so much to come to this school.

With that being said, we propose that the University Of New Haven should consider expanding or building more homes for upper classmen so we are not forced to live off campus. We should be given a choice as upper classmen to live off campus, not force us there if they don’t know what to do with us. There must be some sort of expansion of dorms and places for students to live. Unfortunately, the University of New Haven campus is small and can only host a limited amount of residence halls, but this does not mean more residence halls can’t be built. If the university purchases more land around the campus and expands its boarders there will be plenty of space to both expand residential life, and possibly create more classrooms, which is beneficial with purchasing more land.