By EMILY CLANCE
Copyeditor
This week, Piedmont students will register for fall classes and reserve their rooms for the 2013-14 school year.
The method for reserving rooms this time around is different from in years past: previously students had to fill out a form requesting a dorm and a roommate or suitemate and wait for an email confirming where they would be living.
Now, it’s much simpler: on the day students register for classes, they can go to the student center and literally write their name on a room of their choice.
“Last year, we basically started with people with the highest number of hours on campus,” said Drew Davis, dean of student affairs. “If they lived here and had the highest number of hours, they obviously got to have first dibs on housing.
“This year, we’re grouping seniors together, juniors together, sophomores together, and freshmen together. On Monday would be seniors, over 90 hours; on Tuesday would be juniors, over 60 hours; on Wednesday would be sophomores, over 30 hours; on Thursday, anybody less than 30 hours would need to come in,” said Davis.
Davis said that the change in the way room reservations are done was prompted by students’ complaints last year, specifically rising juniors who wanted to share a suite with rising sophomores.
“That wasn’t really possible last year, but maybe more so this year,” said Davis.
Davis also said that any student with more hours than his or her desired suitemate would not be allowed to reserve a room for the other person.
“It would be luck of the draw,” said Davis. “If that room is still open beside them, then they can come in on their day and put their name on that.”
Though the change in the process of reserving rooms is due to complaints from students with different hours wanting to share a suite, some students didn’t have many problems with last year’s system at all.
“We didn’t have any trouble because we both wanted Bedford or Plymouth,” said senior theatre major McKenna Foote, who is currently sharing a suite with her friend who is a sophomore.
“Next year we’re shooting for Mayflower. I don’t know how this whole new thing is going to work,” said Foote.
Many other students around campus have expressed confusion over the new system.
“It’s giving preferential housing to those with the most hours, who have been here the longest,” said Davis.
Despite rumors of dorms housing different genders next year, Davis said that all dorms will remain the same as they were in the 2012-13 school year, including Purcell Hall, which became a co-ed dorm in the fall semester.