Author: Michael Darling
This week, Occidental hosted a long-standing, traditional spring event: Room Draw! Yes, folks, it’s that exciting time of the year when people gradually go mad trying to find somewhere to reside for the next year. This year, Residence Life and Housing Services made the proceedings more interesting by creating a new program by which students can squat in the room they are currently living in. This at once made things easier for people who liked the room they were living in and harder for everyone else. When the Room Draw festivities got under way, there were fewer rooms available than in past years because of this new policy. This consequently led to frustration for many students as Erdman filled up within the first 200 numbers of the rising senior class.
Now, one of the more unusual things about room draw is RLHS’s insistence on creating a theme for the event every year. I remember my freshman year it was a carnival, perhaps the most depressing carnival I’ve ever been to. This year, to show they were hip with what kids born in the late 1980s and 1990 were into, RLHS decided to turn back the clock and make Room Draw 80s themed. As I visited all three nights of Room Draw, I could see that a number of people decided to dress up for the occasion. Of course, when I say a number, I mean Assistant Community Director Caroline Kim and maybe one or two RAs who were working the event.
This constant desire to turn Room Draw into a fun event misses the point of Room Draw. The last thing on the minds of students looking for rooms is dressing in 80s clothing because it would be funny. This is a stressful event for most students and there is not one who sees it as something goofy. As RLHS encourages students to dress in their best (or worst) 80s attire, the organization makes a mockery of the stress students feel during the event.
I overheard one first year student say on their night of room draw, “I just hope I get a room.” Considering that they actually did run out of rooms, I find it insulting that the best that RLHS can do before room draw is suggest that we all kick back, listen to the hits of the Reagan era and dress in our finest day-glo clothing because everything’s going to go just fine. Well, considering that members of the class of 2012 actually have the opportunity to be (temporarily) homeless at Oxy, I can safely say it did not go well.
Additionally, while we consider the fact that they ran out of rooms, I must bring up a bit of data for the future. The plan as it now stands has the class of 2013, and all other classes after, living on campus through their junior year. It has been said that there are 177 open beds on campus. According to the student directory, there are currently 167 students of junior standing and 268 of senior standing who live off campus. For the record, this number does include those students who are abroad or live at Berkus House. But, if the school ran out of rooms this year at Room Draw, imagine how quickly we would be out of space had those 167 juniors been required to live on campus instead of getting the option to go off campus.
Additionally, many people who are going to live off campus still get a room on campus as a back-up plan in the event that the off-campus plan falls through. I can foresee that when three class years are required to live on-campus, we will run out of space rather quickly.
The Room Draw process has grown dysfunctional and in a few years will reach its breaking point. Unfortunately, I cannot provide any solutions for the space problem that Oxy faces. However, it looks like RLHS doesn’t have a solution either, aside from putting on aviator sunglasses and playing Rick Astley. There was one moment from the three nights of room draw that shall stick with me: As a friend and I sat around watching the events transpire, a staff member asked us why we had come to room draw considering we had already taken care of our housing situations. I said we had come to see the carnage. She asked “What carnage?” Instead of replying, I just looked on as more dorms got filled up. The next night’s rising sophomores were left with a small selection of rooms to fight over until the last 20 had to be placed temporarily in the first-year dorm Braun until spots in other dorms open up. Well, sounds to me like the system’s working.
Michael Darling is a junior History major. He can be reached at mdarling@oxy.edu
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