Isn’t it funny that after a month of nothing but campus issued-fliers occupying your mailbox, the recycle bin becomes a best friend? Just how many more green and yellow pieces of paper adorned with the words “Online Housing Selection 2007” can we take? What will it be next, an automated telephone service that begs students daily to attend an information session or pay a visit to the Bursar’s office?

Residence Life is doing a poor job of “informing” students of the online housing application process. They are making it complicated, annoying and globally damaging, as well.

Okay, so calling whomever is behind the advertising department of Residence Life an “anti-environmentalist” is a bit much, but just how much paper was wasted over the past three weeks? Sure recycling decreases our consumer footprint, but the concept of reduce, reuse, recycle is only effective if consumers take advantage of their recycling institutions.

According to Grinning Planet, nearly one-third of the waste found in landfills is paper.

Residence Life boasts that the application process is online this year for the second time, so let’s keep it that way.

This is a generation of anal-retentive e-mail checkers who can’t be without wireless Internet access for more than five minutes or they break out in hives.

Trust us, by keeping the application information completely online, Residence Life won’t be leaving anyone in the dark.

We’re not idiots. We know that with the start of second semester marks an epic frenzy of where to live next year, with whom to live, and which best friend you will need to stab in the back to room with someone who is less messy, isn’t addicted to sex and doesn’t smoke pot like it’s their job.

Yes, some students may need daily reminders, but those are the students still attached to mommy’s umbilical cord and need to either be cut off or crawl back into the womb.

We challenge you, Residence Life, to keep up your promise that all information is online and to stop harassing us with flier after flier. Save both time and energy and simply keep everything online on E-net.

Plain and simple, stop making it so overwhelming. Maybe if the system is changed a bit, allowing students who turn in their applications the earliest to get the housing that they want, the stress wouldn’t be so bad.

What is the point system? Tell us if we legitimately have a chance of getting into The Oaks if we’re sophomores with a 3.0 average.

Explain to us why Elon Place Gardens and Townhomes, The Crest, University Pointe and Holt/Brown House will not be offered in Elon’s housing selection process.

Above all, drop the appeals process for sophomores and let them live off campus.

It’s unnecessary and causes more work for the university. Clearly the Town of Elon is not big enough for sophomores, juniors and seniors to rent houses or apartments, so the university will not be losing money by allowing those who can afford to live off-campus to, well, live off-campus.

There is obviously a problem with providing enough sufficient housing because Colonnades is being constructed.

How can students even trust the contractor after witnessing what happened to The Oaks residents last semester? Sure Elon can monetarily afford to expand, but can the university’s reputation afford another crisis involving students living at the Elon Homes for Children and Best Western?

Staff: - 03/01/07