After two weeks of musical chair-like drama, everyone seems to have a place to live next year at Duke. Although there are still a few details to sort out, Residence Life and Housing Services must be glad to see the headache is now mostly over. And so are we.

The 30 rising sophomores who have opted to live on Central Campus will receive a $750 discount and a guarantee to live in the newly renovated Few Quadrangle next Spring. We hope that such a transition will move more smoothly than the last round of housing selection.

But what really concerns us is that this type of scenario-students without housing-might become an annual shuffle, especially with Few-like renovations expected and needed for Craven and Crowell quads. In order to ensure this does not happen again, RLHS needs to confront the elephant in the room: selective living groups on West Campus.

Although we understand that selective living groups thrive on their ability to have members live together, having all sophomore students on West Campus must be a bigger priority for RLHS, and should be addressed before fostering the needs of selectives. RLHS should look to existing infrastructure to address this issue.

What's available is the Residential Group Assessment Committee-a program designed by RLHS and Campus Council to measure the performance and contributions to the community of selective living groups in order to determine the placement of sections. But after spending time and resources conducting such an assessment last semester, and despite the knowledge that Few renovation would drastically reduce the number of beds on West, RLHS opted to give all groups sections on West campus next year.

Granted, there have been complaints on the fairness of RGAC scores and questions about how appropriate it would be in eliminating sections for a year-RGAC results were designed to be used in conjunction with a three-year running average before any reallocation or relocations were made. In addition, the system was not conceived on the assumption that there would be a reduced number of rooms on West Campus.

But regardless of the process, the fact that 30 sophomores will be living on Central Campus remains, and the failures of RGAC are at the expense of independents. Because independents don't have a large unified group arguing for their rights, RLHS will have a tendency to cater to those who cry out the loudest.

In future cases, what RLHS and Campus Council should do is reduce the number of beds in each selective section across the board. In doing so, upperclassman members of these groups will be forced to live on Central or off campus-just like the vast majority of their classmates. This would hopefully ensure that all sophomores will have a place to live on West in the future.

Ultimately, renovations should not unfairly inconvenience independents. As members of this community, students, regardless of affiliation, must be called to make sacrifices collectively. We cannot ask independents to sacrifice their sophomore living experience on behalf of those in selectives. Whether it be through an improved RGAC system or a random lottery, RLHS must not be afraid to relocate or reduce the number of rooms available to selective living groups. Living in a section a privilege, not a right-it's time RLHS treated it as such.