The opinions expressed in The Lawrentian are those of the students, faculty and community members who wrote them. The Lawrentian does not endorse any opinions piece except for the staff editorial, which represents a majority of the editorial board. The Lawrentian welcomes everyone to submit their own opinions. For the full editorial policy and parameters for submitting articles, please refer to the About section.
After the events of housing lottery last spring term, and with the addition of first-year residence halls, I began to wonder why it is that there are no stipulations in place for an upperclassman residence hall. While it is true that Hiett Hall gets filled up first, mostly by upperclassmen, it still does not change the fact that it is possible for underclassmen to live in a nicer residence hall, like Hiett Hall, simply by having older friends who want to room with them.
To find some answers, I spoke with Director of Residential Education and Housing Steph Knoppa, asking a few questions about the possibility of making Hiett Hall an upperclassmen residence hall. The answer: not only is it possible, but the idea has been brought up many times before. So that begs the question, what has stopped Hiett Hall from becoming an upperclassmen residence hall?
“The question was brought forward to the Lawrence University Common Council (LUCC) Housing Committee during the 2022-2023 academic year and the committee decided not to move forward” Knoppa wrote.
The possibility of Hiett Hall becoming an upperclassmen residence hall is in the hands of the LUCC Housing Committee, so allow me to make a case that may make the topic worthy of discussion this year.
As we all know, the entirety of Lawrence’s housing lottery system relies on two factors: class and luck. While it is possible you can be fairly lucky as a rising sophomore and get a high 4000 number, you will still be picking after every rising junior and rising senior, just as it is possible that you can get a fairly unlucky 2000 number as a rising senior, but still get to pick before all the other classes. A system as such ensures that you have better odds of getting the rooms and residence halls you desire the longer you attend Lawrence, the same kind of seniority you would see on a sports team when the older players get to pick their jersey numbers first. In both cases, you will have those who are satisfied with their choice, and those who are unsatisfied with the scraps, but those left with the scraps this year will get a chance to choose first in the future.
Now imagine you are a senior on a sports team on jersey day, and as everyone is lining up to pick their jersey number, one of the sophomores on the team cuts you in line. You say, “hey, you are not supposed to be ahead of me, wait your turn like I did!” to which your senior teammates reply, “No, it’s okay if he goes before you, he’s with me!” As silly as this analogy sounds, that is exactly what happens every year within our housing lottery system at Lawrence; underclassmen can get room placements before some upperclassmen, just by being friends or rooming with someone who is an upperclassman. All it takes is one good upperclassmen lottery number to choose a quad or double in Hiett Hall, meaning you can (in theory) have a quad with one senior and three sophomores in a Hiett Hall suite. This means that those who are more social, have more upperclassmen friends or even have upperclassmen teammates that they room with will get to skip the line every time, for no other reason than social factors.
While I do not think it is wrong for people to use the housing lottery system to their advantage, I do think the system is flawed in that it allows people to do such. A housing lottery system based on class needs to be solely based on class to be fair; those who have older friends should not get a “leg-up” in the process.
You may think, “but what about my friend and me — we are two grades apart, but we really want to live together, should we not be allowed to?” My answer to that is no, you absolutely should be allowed to live with each other. Of course you would want to spend your senior year with a roommate of your choice, just not in Hiett Hall. Making Hiett Hall an upperclassman dorm would not require upperclassman to live there, it would just prevent underclassmen from skipping the line in an already less-than-perfect lottery system.
With the Fox Commons project slated for 2024 in our future, I am hopeful for Lawrence’s future in Residential Housing and Education. For now, however, I will do my best to root for the LUCC Housing Committee to reconsider making Hiett Hall an upperclassmen only dorm.