For the first time, room draw, which took place the week before Spring Break, combined juniors and seniors into one lottery group. Before this year, seniors had priority over juniors.

Beginning last year, Director of Residential Life Sarah Griesse worked with a group of students to improve the room draw process. This year, the group sent its recommendation to Macalester College Student Government (MCSG), proposing a change in the distribution of lottery numbers.

According to MCSG Vice President Damion Rhudd ’04, MCSG members discussed four different options: retaining the seniors’ priority status, giving juniors priority, grouping juniors and seniors together or giving priority to juniors studying abroad during spring semester. Griesse said that they considered giving juniors priority because they felt seniors could better handle the challenges of living off campus.

“Most people totally rejected giving juniors preference,” Rhudd said, noting that MCSG did take into consideration the needs of students going abroad. He said that the rationale behind prioritizing juniors studying abroad in the spring was that living on-campus would eliminate the difficulties of signing a yearlong lease and finding subletters. He said that MCSG rejected this option because it would not aid juniors and seniors who study abroad in the fall semester.

After debating the proposals, MCSG voted to group juniors and seniors together.

“More people seemed to think that since seniors could do study abroad in the fall as well, we might as well put juniors and seniors together,” Rhudd said.

“The thought was, why should one student have priority over another?” Griesse said. “Shouldn’t it be equal opportunity?”

Some current juniors disagree. “If you know you’re going to have a lot of singles available—enough for both juniors and seniors to have them—then why not give the seniors the better ones?” Saemi Ledermann ’05 said.

Residential Life also implemented several other changes in housing options, including the allocation of one floor of Dupre Hall and a majority of George Draper Dayton Hall (GDD) suites to sophomores. GDD was initially intended for upperclassmen and Dupre for first-years, but according to Griesse, the large size of next year’s sophomore class necessitates the changes in housing arrangements.

“It forecloses that opportunity for juniors and seniors,” Griesse said. “I know the impact it has on those folks.”

In this year’s room draw, approximately 175 juniors and 120 seniors received on-campus housing, compared to 220 juniors and 120 seniors last year.

Griesse said that the lower number of juniors receiving on-campus housing was likely a result of the large number of sophomores in GDD.

She said that the target size for each entering class is 460 students and that the current first-year class has 511 students. This has already created housing difficulties. This year’s response was to convert the Wallace, Turck and Bigelow lounges into dorm rooms.

Residential Life has set aside 466 beds for incoming first-years, with 20 more beds available in lounges if the class exceeds the projected size. Griesse said she recognizes the problems of housing students in lounges and said she hopes not to have to resort to that next year.

Many incoming sophomores who will be living in Dupre doubles next year are unhappy with their room draw outcome.

“I’m a little irritated because I feel like if anything, they could have at least put us in the new Turck area, in which case we could have been closer to our sophomore peers,” Emily Hedin ’07 said. “Although, since our entire floor is going to be sophomores, I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

“I think that they should have sophomores in [lounges], or maybe put sophomores in the new Turck extension,” Talia Kahn-Kravis ’07 said.

Griesse said that the Admissions Office will have a tentative number for the class of 2008 by mid-May. She also said that between now and next fall, some students may decide to take a leave of absence or transfer, which would free up a small amount of additional housing.