By Oriana LaVilla ‘14
Features Editor

Attending open houses, averaging assignment numbers, scrutinizing hall charts, and that moment of panick when you realize all of your top five room choices have already been taken may soon be sensations of the past. This week’s Be Heard Forum asked students to critically consider our current hall draw process and propose new ideas for a smoother, more enjoyable, and stress-free process. Most students who were at the forum were not avid supporters of the current process. A few issues that students felt strongly about included open house efficiency, rules for friends wanting to combine their numbers to share a room or suite, and the final moment of decision-making in Balch auditorium.

Open House
Problem

Scripps students gather on the Motley stage to discuss the rules and ramifications of this year's Hall Draw.

Open houses can be beneficial to students on some level, but it is difficult for students to be efficient in their room search when every room is slightly different and many current residents are not available to keep their doors open. One student may look at 5 rooms in a specific dorm but come time of hall draw those five rooms are taken and that student has no idea what other rooms in that dorm are like. Running around to all the different open houses can potentially waste a lot of time.

Solution: In addition to having open houses a small committee could create a hall directory for each hall. These directories would detail the perks of each room. For example, Room 100 has a sink, a balcony, and a walk in closet. This would allow students looking for certain “room perks” to see which rooms had what amenities without having to knock on every residents door.

Rules for Students Drawing Singles Together
Problem: The current process requires groups of students wanting to draw at the same time in order to live in single rooms near each other use the lowest of the members’ numbers in a group when drawing.

Solution: Why not let students average their numbers? This would allow them to take advantage of group members’ higher numbers while still keeping things fair.

Final Decision Time
Problem: Students only have a few minutes to look over the hall charts laid out in the Balch conference room, only to realize all of their top five room choices have already been drawn into creates a stressful situations when they are given one minute in the auditorium to draw into another room.

Solution: Create hall charts online, similar to registration, that are updated to show which rooms have been drawn into and which are still available. With this feature, students can check online ahead of time and will be able to re-think their choices without feeling stressed out come draw time.