User:Mahi945

Three ways to improve R/O week

MIT's method of assigning incoming students to housing is unique among universities. Less than a week after arriving on campus, freshmen and incoming students choose their living groups, based on personal perceptions of the character, emphasis, and personalities of the various houses. It is often said that if the Institute tried to assign students to appropriate living quarters, it would take much more time and people would be much less happy; the MIT administration has discovered that by allowing students to choose, within certain constraints, their living groups, they usually feel they have made the "best" possible decision. The Office of the Dean for Student Affairs can improve both the credibility and the outcome of the R/0 Week experience in three significant ways. Acknowledging the virtue of being honest with students while accommodating their concerns is the only way to insure the success of the residence selection process. First, the practice of allowing women to select multiple first choices on their housing preference forms should be discontinued. This practice serves no real purpose except to make it appear, artificially, that more MIT women receive their first choice housing preference than actually do. It is both illogical and impossible to have two first choice living assignments. Continuing this outmoded system serves only to perpetuate arbitrary distinctions between men and women at MIT. Second, ending the "'limbo" period after only three tries at assigning permanent housing leaves too many residents dissatisfied. Currently, students end up in dormitories they rat'ed 3ixth or lower on their housing preference cards, especially in years such as this, when the housing system is extremely overcrowded. This situation arises even though students continue to pledge fraternities throughout R/O, opening presumably desirable spots in the housing system. The Dean's Office should revert to its previous practice of allowing four rounds of the housing lottery, rather than making permanent assignments after the third round and using spaces that open subsequently to remove students from overcrowded rooms. Third, the Dean's Office should attempt to ensure the ratio of incoming men to women assigned to coeducational dormitories reflects the overall composition of the freshmen class, rather than having the ratios of men to women vary between one to one and thirteen to one. The current practice of continuing to assign women to popular facilities, while not sending women to other houses, leaves some women stuck in living arrangements that include few other women. Such a practice is not beneficial to men or women. The Dean's Office should heed the advice it offers to houses that wish to institute coeducational living when it makes housing assignments. Adoption of these three changes would make the residence portion of R/O more satisfying for incoming students, guarantee healthier'living arrangements for dormitory residents, and might increase the credibility of the Dean's Office.