The RHA has endorsed a policy that will lower the housing lottery standing of students on probation.
The Residence Hall Association approved a resolution Tuesday that will allot lower lottery numbers to students with one serious housing violation or two instances of probation. If approved by the Resident Life Department, the measure would be in place for next year’s housing lottery.
The decision came after weeks of debate during which opponents were concerned that earlier drafts of the resolution did not leave room for students who had committed trivial violations, like playing ball games in the hallway or making too much noise.
“I find it unrealistic that 90 percent of students haven’t done ‘anything,'” RHA spokesman Sam Lengyel said. “I think it’s kind of unfair to reward students that have been more sneaky about it.”
Resident Life Director Deb Grandner encouraged the RHA to reconsider the policy, acknowledging that students sometimes “make mistakes.”
“Students should have an opportunity to learn and grow,” she said. “Some of the best student leaders I’ve known have gotten in trouble. It’s sort of the nature of the beast, but perhaps they test the boundaries in the beginning.”
The original resolution the RHA proposed would have penalized all students who were on probation. The final resolution allows for two instances of probation, a compromise reached by the opposing groups.
“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,” freshman elementary education major Guin Parise said. “If you do it once, you should get a warning; if you do it twice, you should learn your lesson.”
The resolution was meant to be a balance between making the lottery system more fair and making the original resolution less strict, author of the resolution and South Campus Commons senator Yoni Levey said.
“I want to clarify that this is not a way of necessarily penalizing,” Levey said. “People think we’re trying to punish the kids that violate rules. It’s not a punishment; it’s trying to include a fair system of priority numbers, which is created on the basis that you should be rewarded for behavior if you follow residence rules.”
Some students are concerned that students written up for more minor violations will be unnecessarily punished. Parise said she felt that because resident assistant enforcement varied in each dorm building, their judgments could be subjective.
“There are dorms where people play beer pong in the hall, and we have RAs that creep into your dorms,” Parise said. “If you’re friends with the RAs, you are cut more slack.”
Other supporters of the policy wanted to take it a step further, going so far as to propose throwing out the random number system in favor of another based on educational achievement.
“This is a starting point,” freshman biology major Wendy Kanter said. “I still think [lottery positions] should be based off credits.”
Students that have already committed two B-level violations, however, will not be affected. The measure will only impact those students if they commit an additional transgression, Levey said.
korkut@umdbk.com
