Changes Considered For Housing Lottery

The College's experiment with a new freshman housing lottery format this spring has raised a variety of concerns among students and administrators that could lead to a new round of changes in the system, the assistant dean of housing said yesterday.

As a committee of students, professors and administrators prepares to study the effectiveness of last month's lottery, Undergraduate Council representatives last night announced plans to survey freshman attitudes toward the new system.

The College's Committee on House Life, which oversees the house system, will weigh heavily the results of the referendum in its review of the current lottery system, said Assistant Dean of Housing Thomas A. Dingman '67.

"I'm concerned that we find out from the freshmen what they feel" about the new system, Dingman said. This year was the first in which freshmen were given their lottery numbers before making their house selections.

"We have reports that the greater amount of time and agonizing over what the number meant created a preoccupation for the freshmen," Dingman said. "That's not a productive way to spend two weeks."

Dingman said he is not sure when the Committee on House Life will recommend possible changes in the housing system to Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57. Dingman said he hopes the committee will finish its review by next fall at latest.

The referendum planned by the Undergraduate Council's 17-member Residential Committee is still subject to approval by the council as a whole at its meeting Sunday, but Richard S. Eisert '88, the committee chairman said he has "no doubt" the council will approve the referendum.

Eisert said the planned poll, which will be conducted in about two weeks, will likely ask three questions:

. "What was your lottery number?"

. "Did the new lottery system make you look at houses you might not have examined under the old system?"

. "Would you prefer that the University continue to give out lottery numbers before house selections are made, or that the University not give out the numbers before freshmen make their choices?"

The Committee on House Life's review of the new lottery system comes amid widespread student and administration questioning of the new lottery system.

"In the past, there wasn't as much scheming and trying to beat the system,"Dingman said. "This year the first choices werenot genuine," he said.

Dingman said he has sent letters to veteranfreshman proctors asking them if they think thechanges in the lottery system were "worthwhile orcounterproductive."

"The numbers this year didn't give you any morecontrol," said Freshman Council President AndrewGoldfarb '89, one of two freshmen who monitoredthe running of the computer program which lastmonth assigned 1576 Yardlings to their homes forthe next three years.

"I think the best way to do it is the way theydid it last year," Goldfarb said. "There's a lotmore anxiety with this year's system," he said.

But other students defended the new system,saying it gives students more control over theirhousing assignments and encourages students toinquire about houses in which they might nototherwise be interested.

"Under the new system, people were much betterinformed about the houses," said UndergraduateCouncil member Robert H. Greenstein '89, the otherfreshman who oversaw the computer assignments."People were actually traveling out to MatherHouse and the Quad" to get information abouthouses, he said.

Eisert supported the new system, saying that inthe future, freshmen would benefit from thelessons learned this year. "This year peoplepanicked if they had number 350. Next year they'llrealize that with that number they still have achance to live in a house they find desirable,"Eisert said.

"When 80 percent get their first choice houses,and you also hear grumbling, you wonder what'sgoing on. Eighty percent is remarkably high,"Eisert said.

In past years, an average of about 70 percentof freshmen were assigned to their first choicehouse. Observers of this year's lottery havecalled the 80 percent figure misleading becausestudents did not necessarily list their trulypreferred house first