News | 4/10/08

Media Credit: Kris Marsh [Click to enlarge]

Searching for a roof over their heads for the fall semester, students swarmed the University Union Chesapeake Rooms Wednesday for Housing and Residence Life's room sign up.
Students who completed and returned a deposit for on-campus housing waited for their number to be called in order to choose their living arrangements for next year.
"We assign numbers randomly to every student who made a housing deposit and we are calling them up in that random order so that they can sign up for a room that is available," Jerry Dieringer, assistant vice president and director of housing and residence life, said.
Students could sign up for on-campus housing including the Towson Run Apartments.
"Students who are staying in the building [the currently live in] get priority over students trying to move into [a different] building," Dieringer said.
Some residents were frustrated with the room sign up process.
"It's slow and it's unfortunate because I turned in my housing deposit right away and I got such a high number," Sara Eichelberger, a freshman EMF and business major, said. "Sitting here and waiting takes a lot of time out of the day."
Nina Lentz, a freshman elementary education major, said she's going to live with four strangers next year.
"It was disorganized. I don't like the way they let [groups of] two people sign up for a four-person room," Lentz said. "I hope it won't be a problem… but we won't know until next year."
In the past, students would camp outside the University Union in order to secure the room they wanted. Since then the process has changed.
"We've done it this way for years and every year we refine the process," Dieringer said.
Additional changes are in the works.
"Within the next two years we will be doing this process online. We won't be doing it this way much longer. We are working with a computer program so students don't have to come here, but we're still working on that," he said.
Though some students said they were unhappy, they also said they knew that this was just the way it was.
"Try and be patient. It's not in your hands. There's really nothing else you can do," Eichelberger said.

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