In yesterday’s editorial, we commented on the inconsistencies evident in the Residential Group Assessment Committee evaluation at the end of its first cycle. These flaws call for a critical look at the purpose of RGAC, with an eye toward possible changes in the future.

As it stands rights now, RGAC’s evaluation of groups’ contributions to their members and the larger University community overreaches its rightful purview, resulting in several unintended consequences and perpetuating the status quo of housing on this campus.

As former Campus Council president Molly Bierman wrote in a guest column last December, the goal of the RGAC review is “to be an opportunity for a group to demonstrate to their peers why its contributions render it worthy of this real estate.” Her statement belies the larger premise behind the RGAC process: a section on campus is not a right but a privilege.

Occupying a reserved set of housing from year to year is  indeed a privilege for living groups. Its members do not have to enter the housing lottery, and they are guaranteed housing on West Campus for at least two years. To a certain extent, groups should have to justify this privilege—a process that RGAC aspires to fulfill.

In addition to examining how well living groups maintain their residential space, RGAC is also charged with measuring a group’s impact on its members and its contributions to the larger residential community.

But as far as a small, relatively unrepresentative body like RGAC is concerned, a section should be considered a privilege only in the sense that groups should take care of their space and exhibit good behavior.

Any hope to evaluate groups on their efficacy and impact, however, should be left to IFC, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Selective House Council working in collaboration with other administrators. RGAC’s generalized criteria of evaluation are too inflexible and rigid to adequately examine residential groups that exist for a wide range of purposes and functions.

The ideal RGAC model would only assess the residential aspect of living groups (how well they respect their section) and let each group’s respective oversight organization conduct internal evaluation—in conjunction with University officials—to determine its overall impact on its members and the Duke community.

Such a system based solely on residential performance could prevent RGAC from being perceived as an overarching, pseudo-disciplinary body that will drive greek life off campus. As IFC President Eric Kaufman has noted, fraternities that score low on the assessment may be incentivized to find space off campus rather than settle for an undesirable living space on West. For the sake of both campus culture and town-gown relations, this is an outcome administrators should seek to avoid.

Involving more organizations and individuals in the evaluation of residential groups would help to combat the fact that RGAC as it exists right now is too rooted in the status quo and fails to articulate a larger vision for housing at Duke. Group assessment should not simply reshuffle the same pieces of the University’s housing puzzle, but also consider what, if any, new groups should be added and which deserve to be removed.

Criticisms of the RGAC process are merited, but moving forward, University officials and students should collaborate to re-formulate residential assessment that is both fair and functional.