2008 Woodie Awards
Who will be my roommate?
Lindsay Dunham
Issue date: 8/22/08 Section: News
For many college students, bad roommates top the list of biggest fears for the new school year. Luckily, the SIUE Housing office has a system that helps to prevent roommate horror stories.
When filling out the Housing application, students fill out a personal questionnaire on the back of the application about their living and study habits. The questionnaire asks about preferences like what type of music each student prefers to whether he or she is morning or night person.
After the applications are all turned in, the data from each application is put into a computer, and assignments are made based on the information. When the process is complete, the Housing staff will go back over the assignments to double check.
"This system is flexible enough to allow us to balance the changing needs of our students," Scott Gluntz, associate director of Housing, said.
The problem comes when students are not honest on their applications, or when they have a family member fill it out for them.
"Ultimately, our assignments are only as good as the information provided on the back of the application," Gluntz said. "Thus, the importance (is) that the student answers the questions, not a family member."
Another problem that can cause some questionable match-ups is when there are last minute cancellations.
"When we get the cancellations we don't have the same pool, so we have to match up with what open spots we have left," Michael Schultz, director of Housing, said. "Those are our not-so-perfect matches."
Schultz said before the computer system, the housing office used to do all matches by hand but found it to be too time consuming.
"We've done it both ways but found that we were getting the same results," Schultz said.
As another way of preventing roommate conflicts, the Housing office asks that all roommates fill out a roommate contract at the beginning of the year. The roommate contract helps roommates agree to certain boundaries that could potentially cause conflict later in the year, such as working out a cleaning schedule, setting rules for study time and even agreeing upon the latest time visitors can come to their room.
When filling out the Housing application, students fill out a personal questionnaire on the back of the application about their living and study habits. The questionnaire asks about preferences like what type of music each student prefers to whether he or she is morning or night person.
After the applications are all turned in, the data from each application is put into a computer, and assignments are made based on the information. When the process is complete, the Housing staff will go back over the assignments to double check.
"This system is flexible enough to allow us to balance the changing needs of our students," Scott Gluntz, associate director of Housing, said.
The problem comes when students are not honest on their applications, or when they have a family member fill it out for them.
"Ultimately, our assignments are only as good as the information provided on the back of the application," Gluntz said. "Thus, the importance (is) that the student answers the questions, not a family member."
Another problem that can cause some questionable match-ups is when there are last minute cancellations.
"When we get the cancellations we don't have the same pool, so we have to match up with what open spots we have left," Michael Schultz, director of Housing, said. "Those are our not-so-perfect matches."
Schultz said before the computer system, the housing office used to do all matches by hand but found it to be too time consuming.
"We've done it both ways but found that we were getting the same results," Schultz said.
As another way of preventing roommate conflicts, the Housing office asks that all roommates fill out a roommate contract at the beginning of the year. The roommate contract helps roommates agree to certain boundaries that could potentially cause conflict later in the year, such as working out a cleaning schedule, setting rules for study time and even agreeing upon the latest time visitors can come to their room.
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