The housing application process begins Monday, with a few changes in residence life. Most of these changes revolve around the additions of various learning communities and the subsequent necessity for others to relocate.

Six learning communities will be housed in The Colonnades, two new halls behind Koury Business Center featuring kitchens, common rooms and laundry rooms on every floor and full size beds in every room.

Members of the new Deutches Haus, La Casa Italiana, La Maison Francaise, Sustainable Living, Love School of Business and Collective Action & Responsibility Learning Communities will occupy either suite-style halls with four single rooms, two shared bathrooms and a common area, or “stand-alone style” rooms with private bathrooms, said Nadia Alamo, Assistant Director of Residence Life and Operation of Information Management.

The Casa de Espanol Learning Community will also be moving to The Colonnades, leaving the off-campus Trollinger House open to upperclassmen members of the Arts and Letters Learning Community. Freshmen members of the learning community will remain in Chandler, where the community currently resides.

The last of the relocating communities, the Service Learning Community, will move to first floor Staley, prompting another change: Staley’s first floor will become co-ed, since Housing does not want to discourage male students from joining the learning community, Alamo said.

Some downsizing will take place in Danieley Buildings “L,” “M” and “N” and will be exclusively for freshmen. Instead of the original 10-person dorms, each suite will house only eight.

“Even when all 10 people get along,” Alamo said, “there were still too many people.”

This change will also give suitemates more common space, as the unoccupied fifth bedroom will double as a common room.

Another change partially caused by the relocation of learning communities is the inability for students presently living in specified areas to squat or otherwise stake out their buildings.

Instead, they must wait until after Phase 1, or the guaranteed housing phase, where students allowed to squat have done so.

Then, these specified students will be allowed an unofficial “1.5 Phase” when they have their housing options given to them, Alamo said.

Afterwards, Phase 2 commences on March 12 for those students wishing to live somewhere new, and Phase 3 begins on March 29, when students can put themselves on the wait list for new housing if they are not satisfied with their situations.

Highest priority for housing assignments is based on a point system that represents the number of semesters students have lived on campus.

For example, a freshman and sophomore wishing to room together have a cumulative number of five semesters, or points, and would have a better shot at living in their requested housing than two freshmen, with a cumulative of four points.

When there are ties in the point system, the group with the highest cumulative GPA will receive its housing assignment first. Alamo said this scenario will probably occur quite a bit this year, because the new housing developments are already rocking the Housing Selection 2007 process.

Students currently studying abroad must go through the same housing application as everyone else, but have the benefit of designating their roommate choice as their “proxy,” so they can have a better chance at rooming with him or her. It’s virtually the “same process, just a little bit later and on paper,” said Alamo.

Reporter: Molly McGowan - 03/01/07