Left out in the cold

Just before leaving for Spring Break last week, students at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth were struck with a lowblow by University officials who announced a flip-flop in the school’s housing lottery system. In guaranteeing housing to every freshman, the school jeopardized the possibility of on-campus living for upperclassmen.

Announced on the eve of fall housing selection, the decision will displace about 100 upperclassmen, UMass officials estimate. The move is intended to make sure incoming students have a place to stay on campus, but because it forces upperclassmen out of their rooms, the announcement prompted violent protests on the UMass campus last week.

The intent of the policy change is good: freshmen who are living away from home for the first time should be able to live oncampus without worry of utility payments, landlords or realtors. However, the school handled its announcement and administration poorly.

So enraged were students that their protest left $4,000 worth of damage to the University and flooded administrative offices with hundreds of objecting phone calls. Administrators should have at the very least given upperclassmen more time to plan ahead if they were not going to be able to stay on-campus. Instead the students are left scrambling for spots in the New Bedford or Fall River communities.

The housing crunch issue doesn’t come as a surprise for UMass officials; two new dorms furnishing a total of about 800 students were already in the works before the announcement, meaning administrators were aware a problem existed. If they knew of potential troubles, it would have only been fair of them to warn students with enough advance notice so they could have made other arrangements.

This year, only 2,400 of UMass-Dartmouth’s 5,600 students live on campus. The UMass students have spoken their opinions clearly, though if administrators had spoken up sooner, perhaps the students wouldn’t have been forced to speak so loudly.