Housing Advisory Committee

The Housing Advisory Committee (HAC) is a committee of students and staff that reviews and makes recommendations relating to housing policy and room choosing procedures. HAC Meetings are seasonal. When they meet, they are every other Friday at 1:00 in the Merrill House Living Room. Meetings are open to all Hampshire College community members. HAC is always seeking more student involvement.

Contact Information
HAC chair: Linda Mollison (Director of Housing Operations), can be contacted at lmollison@hampshire.edu or x5543.

When HAC is meeting, those unable to attend can join the discussion on the ResLife discussion board at discussion.hampshire.edu.

Members
Who are the members?

Robert Farrell - Greenwich representative

- Enfield representative

- Prescott representative

- Merrill representative

- Dakin representative

Notes - 3/3/11 Meeting Regarding Potential Changes to the Lottery System
I appreciated your input about the proposal. Although it is still unclear whether or not to go forward with this idea, our discussions were helpful and it seemed to me that most of you were in favor of trying this new process out this spring. To re-capture the proposal:

The regular MOD lottery will be held in three stages - Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, with the dorm halls being up for lottery on Friday afternoon. The regular mod lottery will be held in size order: 4 person mods first, then 5, then six, etc. until the 10 person mods are done on Thursday evening. In this way, groups will always be adding and NEVER cutting people from their groups.

In order to get to this point, the lottery that historically has happened on Wednesday nights - the 4, 5 and 6 person Greenwich mods (which, historically, have been less popular) - will happen through a written process, prior to the physical lottery, using a worksheet (attached). This would enable groups of students to form, talk about how they might live together, discuss potential designations, determine who will live in the double, etc. and form their official groups for a specific size mod. Students can only be on ONE form, and if they win a mod through this process, their housing is set and final. They do not need to go to the lottery. First year students would be encouraged to complete these forms. They have "nothing to lose" by being part of this process. Older students can weigh their decisions around where they really "want" to live. If they have their hearts set on living in Enfield, they could wait for the official lottery when Enfield goes up.

Potential problems: Older students who wait for "more desirable" mods may end up not having enough points and not getting housed in the mods. However, if that were to happen, they could sign up for dorm halls, get on the mod wait list, or perhaps consider off campus if there are still slots available.

The attempt of this proposal is to:

lessen anxiety around the lottery have groups give more thought to designations have groups give more thought to who lives in the double have groups form around common themes have groups get progressively bigger - never smaller

Again, thanks for your participation. I encourage you to talk with other students and bring others with you for next week's meeting - at 3:30 on Thursday in the Dakin House Living Room!

- Notes sent out by Linda Mollison

History
What are some of their past big issues or significant accomplishments?